


Kara Danvers and Hades' Daughter

by Britishgal



Series: Kara Danvers and Hades' Daughter [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Supergirl
Genre: F/F, Percy Jackson AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-05-31 18:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15125852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britishgal/pseuds/Britishgal
Summary: Alex Danvers drops by after two years of being away at a mysterious boarding school, to tell Kara that she might not be completely mortal... exactly. Oh, and Kara forgot to mention, she also appears just in time to save her from being eaten by her English substitute. Yeah. All of that sadly, is not an exaggeration. And this wild first adventure? It's just the tip of the iceberg.Join Kara and friends through the years, as they grow up at Camp Half-blood. For Kara, her obvious highlight is Lena Luthor, and for Alex... guess you'll have to wait and see!





	1. Year Zero

#  Year Zero

###  Chapter 1

Before Camp Half-blood, there was… regular middle school.  Kara Danvers had been in her final year at one such fine institution in National City for precisely three months, before she found out she was a demi-god; take that how you will. She liked to refer to this brief and chilling experience, as year zero. Because the events that occurred there and then, triggered some unforeseen consequences; that in turn opened up her world and changed her life into something significantly more interesting. If the _god_ part of the earlier sentence didn’t clue you into that already of course. To be very clear, Kara was part _god_ , and North Jefferson was the site of her personal ground zero. See each demi-kid had their own… _unique awakening_ let’s say, to the mythological Greek world. Some of these stories were epic, and others heart-breakingly tragic. But Kara’s origin story surprisingly, wasn’t particularly unusual, as far as these tales went. All teens went to middle-school after all, and monsters weren’t the smartest creatures, but credit to them they did know where to look for their prey.

Jefferson was this tired 60’s high school. The height of it’s pride its scuffed wooden floors and second-hand text books that dated back to the early 2000’s. It poor state-of-existence wasn’t too surprising when you accounted for the severe under-funding it faced. Government functionality at its finest. In the mortal world, it would seem a very unsuspecting location for what had happened to Kara. Perhaps the only more unassuming location to find out you’re actually part god was by the coffee-and-donut stand six blocks west. Apparently, this was the site of Alex’s awakening as she’d later find out. Apparently, it was a very… _public_ spectacle. Anyway, it was her third week of her third month at North Jefferson, _and the last week of school before the Christmas holidays…_

Kara slams her locker a little louder than necessary, before collapsing into the pale blue metal. Resting her head on the enamelled steel, she tries to come up with a future explanation for why she’s arrived home so late. Detention _again_ , that was the second time this month! What was she going to say to Jeremiah? She promised she wouldn’t get into as much trouble here as Alex had... Ironically, Kara had thought the _one_ monthly detention that was her sister’s average was bad. It _was_ bad, and Jeremiah had sent his only true daughter away to a military Academy when she started acting out… so what the hell would his plan be for someone he’d just recently adopted? Kara subconsciously chews on the inside of her lip.

The fire-alarm produces a piercing two-part ring that tells Kara, and she supposes any remaining faculty, that the school doors are about to lock. It’s nearly four o’clock. Kara’s screwed. She sighs to herself. Not that this whole thing hadn’t been worth it. Tessmacher was being bullied again and Kara had finally chosen to _do_ something about it this time. She _should_ have done something about it weeks ago, but hey, at least she had managed it in the end. Next time she’d know better, act sooner.  The smaller girl was always made to do things for her classes ‘it’ girls, and in return she got ridiculed by them behind her back. Kara doubted Bea even knew, so when she called the head of the girls out on it, and when in return they’d called her a s***, Kara got mad. Kara in truth got _furious_ , but Kara was also smart.  In her rage all she’d done, was throw a paper ball at that witch’s head, which could bless classed as mildly cheeky at best. It was harmless, she’d seen boys get into physical fights in homeroom before, and all her previous subs had done was tell them to settle down. And certainly, she wasn’t counting on Miss Buckley of all people to be taking care of them that morning. Or to walk in at the exact moment of her missile launch. The whole class seemed to agree with her that detention was an unusually harsh punishment. Buckley truly despised her, and Kara had no idea what she’d done that was so bad to deserve that.

Speaking of… behind her, Kara hears the distinct clacking of those grotesque plastic heels, and feels herself gulp down a mild lump of foreboding. Yep, she also had the honour of spending detention with Buckley today, along with four other unlucky clods. She turns to face the English substitute, who’s- oddly paused at the end of the lengthy hallway… okay.  In the dim light of the corridor she catches a glimmer of the elder woman’s horn-rimmed glasses. They were quite the fashion statement. Kara tries to give her most pleasant smile.

“ _Miss Buckley,_ hi!” Kara greets her.

The substitute doesn’t respond. Instead she’s just watching, which is a little weird, but Kara guesses she’s waiting on Kara to say something. She’s fairly certain she knows what it is.

“Listen, I wanted to apologise for earlier? I was out of line, and it was rude of me to become at all violent, and I know there are better ways to handle myself. So, _I’m_ _sorry_.”

It’s genuinely _partially_ sincere; it would be fully if she had just listened to what Kara had to say about the bullying incident. Instead Buckley’d just told Kara to be quiet. Rude and dismissive as that was… Kara tried to respect her elders.

“ _For what?_ ”

Her teach hisses back, her voice sounding oddly… croaky. Maybe she’s coming down with something. The grey-haired woman was a person of few words as it was.

“I- for earlier. For the paper throwing thing, that you gave me detention for? The detention that we just came out of…”

“Don’t get smart with me _half-blood_.”

Half-blood? What was that some sort of English reference, or Kara mentally gasps, was that some sort of _slur_ that she just wasn’t aware of? Kara thought she knew all of them by now. Anyway, if it was, Kara was going straight to the Principal’s office to file a complaint tomorrow. The entire student body could testify that Buckley needed some time with the HR department anyhow.

“I’m afraid I don’t exactly uh- _get_ that reference, Miss Buckley.”

 _“I am not a substitute.”_ The grey-haired menace hisses at her again, and then she begins to cackle. Okay yeah, she definitely has something lodged in her throat.

“Oh I’m sure with some more hours of training, and a bit of time and effort, you’ll be a real teacher in no time Miss.”

Kara tries to comfort her, it’s not at all the right thing to say.

“ _HALF-BLOOD!”_

Mrs Buckley suddenly cries out again. Loudly, very loudly. Kara stays rooted to the spot, not yet afraid, but certainly curious. She’s suddenly hyper-aware of there being lack of anyone else present. It seemed likely now that Kara’s English-teach-has-a-frog-in-throat hypothesis was wrong now anyhow. Was her substitute having a mental breakdown? Right now, here in front of her of all people? She tries to figure out who she can approach to get help… But where the hell had everyone disappeared too?

Slowly, her teacher begins to move toward her, and instantly Kara can see its not... _normal_. At first, her teacher’s walk is almost predatory, but it changes _so fast_. It shifts into movement that looks for some reason jarringly unhuman. Her walk is… the tempo is all wrong, and her feet are dragging across the floor for a second too long. She drags her gaze upward to find Buckley’s head is ticking, like she’s stressed. Her dad’s eyebrow did that sometimes, when he’d had a long day at work. Maybe… Buckley had just had a particularly tough day? Her English sub is perhaps 10 metres away from Kara when she opens her mouth. It opens, and- oh my god.

 _“This can’t be real.”_ Kara whispers.

Her teacher vanishes. Any discernible trace of human Mrs. Buckley, from the neck down, is suddenly gone in what looks like a trail of thin mist. And in it’s place is… something avian. Grotesque. Abominable. It’s some sort of _bird-human_. Kara feels her jaw drop. There is no scientific explanation for this, she knows that already, or she’s fairly certain the world would be talking about it. Her dad wouldn’t be able to stop. Kara’s rooted to the spot in fear. She feels like she’s read about this somewhere, like she knows what the name of this abomination actually is, but Kara’s a bit distracted right now. Buckley’s face _is on a giant chicken body_. Kara wants to vomit. She had to be dreaming. This was a dream, a nightmare, she’d fallen asleep in detention or something and this was her mind punishing her for it.

Mrs. Buckley releases something from her grotesque beak that sounds like a cross between a howl and a caw. The sound snaps her out of her paralysis. _Run._ She thinks, and then she thankfully does. It doesn’t help that they’re on the first floor. It also doesn’t help that Kara ran in the opposite direction to the gosh darn exit. But it’s also safe to say the paranormal screeching and thundering of chicken feet behind her isn’t helping her to think clearly, like at all.

_“I’ve been waiting for this moment for months, Kara. Waiting to feast on your goodie-two-shoes, teacher’s pet, no-good, sad little pre-pubescent brain.”_

Buckley releases a sadistic laugh.

Goodie-two-shoes? Teacher’s pet? Pre-pubescent? Kara was 12! There were several inaccuracies with that description of her. But nope, no thank you, Kara Danvers quite liked her brain, no time to twirl around and demand an apology. She rounds one corner of the corridor and enters the next, and in the dim light of the hallway, right at it’s far end, she spots her saving grace. The weak green glow of the fire exit.  Let’s see the beast try and follow her through there.

“If you want my brain, you’ll have to catch me first!”

Kara cries out in defiance. She’s met back with an equally terrifying and deafening squawk-roar. Not a good idea to antagonise that thing, she should’ve realized. Oh god where the hell was somebody, ANYbody?

“HELP!” Kara cries out, as she flies past the empty chemistry labs. “ _SOMEONE!_ ”

There’s no answer. Still it was worth a shot. In a twisted way she’s sort of semi-relieved because screaming for help, _admitting she needs help at all really_ , isn’t exactly her thing. Usually Kara preferred to solve things on her own.

Suddenly, Kara hears crashing behind her, and turns to see that the chicken has tripped over a stray janitor’s bucket, and currently has her foot stuck (rather comedically Kara might add), inside it. She can’t help but pause and release a genuine laugh before she carries on. _Down the stairs, come on!_ She mentally encourages herself. Her hands slam down on the metal door’s bar, and her feet smack so hard against the lino flooring she can actually hear their eerie echo move up the staircase. Kara’s moving so quickly she’s terrified of tripping over her own feet, just one mistake and she was bird-food. _No pressure, no pressure, no pressure._ She’s four steps away from the bottom floor when she hears metal slam against the concrete above her. So, the hag _could_ fit down the stairwell.

_“DANVERS!”_

Another piercing howl makes her ears feel like they’re bleeding.

**_Out into the quad! NOW!_ **

Kara stumbles through the fire exit and onto the heated tarmac, blinking back the blinding rays from the sun. Her eye’s squint and adjust less quickly than she’d like and it costs her too much time. Perhaps 400 meters away from her, lie the school gates, and beyond them, the blissful streets of National City. Something registers in her brain and Kara realizes she needs a weapon. She steels herself. She needs to fight. She couldn’t let that thing hit the streets, not when there were so many innocent people out in the city. Argh, but what was there to use outside? All the useful weaponry would be in the labs, or the gym or even the music room. Immediately she regrets her first instinct was to flee.

Behind her there’s the sound of smashing rock. Kara whirls round to see that Buckley has actually broken through the main-building’s walls.  Oh, that was going to cost the school so much in terms of property damage. She really hoped Jeremiah wouldn’t be liable. Kara looks around her. Shit. Fuck. Kara didn’t like to swear but this time she feels like she’s allowed. There was… there was no cover out here. There were bushes, and a wooden bench but… Buckley could easily decimate them.

 _“Oh, you’ve done it now Danvers_.” She groans to herself.

She was going to die. _She was going to die_. But Kara wishes she had the time to at least find a way to die that also stopped her teacher. _She had to save National City_. She runs a stressed hand through her hair. She just needed more time to think of a plan, to think of something-

It’s hard to tell with the half-chicken face, but Miss Buckley, Kara swears, looks immensely gleeful upon seeing her in such distress. So much emotion for such a heartless beast. Kara nervously swallows. Buckley can see that Kara has trapped herself, Kara knows that much. But Kara can’t think up what to do, her mind is drawing up a big ol' pile of blank, she’s so scared. This is not the time to freeze, her body needed to respond and do something **_now_**. Buckley crouches down, like she’s getting ready to charge. Oh god.  Did Kara look death in the eye, or did she just screw her eyes shut and try not to scream too much at the sound of her own body being torn to shreds?

You know what? Kara swallows. Opening up her eyes once again. She could at least go out with honour.

Kara regrets this decision immediately when Buckley starts to run. Oh fuck. She was going to die not ever even having had her first kiss. With the signature squawk-roar Buckley charges. Kara’s so startled, that as she tries to run backward she accidentally trips over her own chucks, somehow they'd managed to come untied in all this chaos.  She falls to the ground hard. Her glasses clatter off her face. She reaches for them, but then Buckley’s murky form is suddenly there, looming above her. In her chest, Kara’s heart plummets.

So. This was it.   

Then, out of nowhere she hears the light whoosh of air, and the murky shadow of Miss Buckley stumbles backward and releases a deafening scream. Kara immediately stumbles for her glasses. As soon as they’re back on her face, she spots the arrow firmly lodged into the creature's eye. On the ground, there's traces of a hissing black ooze. Kara low key wants to throw up. She can only assume that's the creature's form of blood? Her head swivels behind her, to find the source of the unexpected projectile, and to also thank her saviour from the deepest recesses of her very being. When she sees who it is, she feels like punching the air in joy. _Totally_ not who she was expecting!

_"Step the hell away from my foster-sister you over-sized Christmas dinner!”_

It’s Alex god-damn Danvers. _Her_ foster sister, armed to the teeth with a bow and arrow, and what looked like a whole other host of weaponry strapped to her back. Kara’s completely lost, but at that moment she doesn’t care at all. She scrambles to her feet, and away from the monster that had itself retreated back into the building. Back through the busted wall it had created. She watches a winged claw scrape at the exterior stone as it leaves. Served it right.

“Alex!”

Kara leaps at her and pulls her possibly into the tightest bear-hug Alex has ever felt in her entire life. Alex smiles and hugs her sister back with just as much love and desperation.

“I can honestly say, I have _never_ been so glad to see you.”

Kara continues, and moves back so she can actually look her older adoptive sister in the face. She beams at her. Alex missed that goofy grin. It’s a mutual feeling. She hated being away from her sister for so long, and Kara not being able to know the truth about anything going on in her life. Not that she had ever expected to be able to actually tell her. But now that she could… this was amazing! Well right now the truth would seem horrible to her, but in time Kara would understand everything, and appreciate what she was. Anyway, right now they had a job to do. Later, they could catch up on everything then. Kara continues to ramble.

 _“Seriously,_ thank you. I’m pretty sure you just saved my life!" Kara pauses. _"_ …Alex, what was that thing? You saw it, too right? Am I going crazy? No, wait, of course you saw it, you just shot it in the face… and what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at that boarding school in Utah.”

_That was a couple of states away. How the hell did Alex make it all the way here from Utah by herself? And where did she learn how to use a bow and arrow?_

There are actual tears in Alex’s eyes.

“I just can’t believe I got here on time. I didn’t believe it when the oracle told me that you we’re a demi-god too, I mean what are the chances…”

She’s saying things that Kara doesn’t understand, just like Buckley had.

“A demi-what?” Kara blinks, she must have misheard. First _half-blood_ and now _demi-god_ ….

Alex pats her tiredly on the face. She looks exhausted, as she trundles ahead of her. Suddenly she’s kneeling on the floor and unpacking the literal load she was bearing from her shoulders. Was that a shield?

“No time to explain. But your former Home Ec. teacher will be back, and when she is, you need to listen to me very carefully, okay? Take the shield on the floor, it’s iron so it’s heavy, but it’s also enchanted. As for that small sword? That’s a xiphos. I need you to take them both and create a distraction for me. Do you understand?”

Kara wants to interrupt that Miss Buckley is actually her English substitute, but okay, that was a correction for another time. She shifts to begin doing what her sister has told her.

“Alex what is this?”

Alex can hear the tiny quiver of fear in her sister’s voice and her heart breaks a little. There was no time for comforting words. She stands up and shoves the Xiphos into Kara’s arms and watches as her sister struggles to fix the enchanted shield onto her left arm. Both weapons are oversized, because they’re meant for Alex, and not for Kara. But still the weapons look good. Natural on her. Kara had always been a warrior in her eyes.

Alex sighs and steps forward. This wasn’t going to be easy for her sister to digest. Sometimes Alex still found herself questioning her reality. She claps a reassuring hand on her sister’s shoulder, and gives it a tight squeeze. And looking her sister dead in the eyes she says the words that turn Kara’s life upside down.

 _“That_ Kara, was a harpy. And we’re going to kill it, right now _,_ together. _”_


	2. Year One

#  Year One

###  Chapter 2

“So, you’re telling me, that your sister just straight up-”

Winn makes a gagging motion as his hand grasps up at his heart. He looks to Kara, blinking fast as he mimics the shock of seeing an arrow protruding from his chest. Then, leaping form the porch-swing of Hermes’s Cabin, he stumbles a second before he falls to the floor, writhing uselessly for what feels at least like thirty seconds. Which is an even funnier sight when you accounted for his hairy goat legs. Kara releases a loud laugh at his dramatics.

“ _Yes_. Yep, that is exactly how Miss Buckley looked.”

It wasn’t. Not even close. _But it was so much better!_ Kara wipes away the tears of amusement from beneath her glasses.

…Nothing really even remotely as thrilling as that episode had happened to Kara since, and she was now in her eighth month of camp. First Year was all training and introductory lessons, no quests, just ensuring they were all up to scratch on their self-defence. Which given the hazardous nature of their occupation, Kara understands completely. It hasn’t been a complete waste though, Kara’s done all the important things, made friends, like Winn, and she’s kept on top of all her studies. It doesn’t mean she isn’t feeling restless though, because in truth Kara is desperate to leave camp. …She just had to curb her agitation until summertime.

_“I know it can be hard to listen to adults Kara, because they can be super annoying, I get it. But… there are so many people like us here, and the teachers genuinely want to help us grow, I think. So, please listen to them, follow the rules, and don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”_

The words her sister told her when they first arrived at Half-Blood, fill her mind; thus far this advice was the only thing that had kept her safely within the camps confines. Officially, as a first year, there was no crossing the camp boundaries without the director’s permission. Funnily enough this advice was given to Kara just before she’d been introduced to the camp director himself, J’onn Jonz. The rules were made even easier to follow from this point, considering she sort of super-respected the centaur as soon as she met him. Everyone respected J’onn, he just made it sort of easy.

Alex’s commentary had referred to the fact that most the other campers here also had ADHD and Dyslexia. As for that _don’t-do-anything-I-wouldn’t-do_ comment, well Kara had also had to spend the last eight months also re-getting to know her sister. With the demi-god revelation, a large hole had opened up in Kara’s Alex-knowledge, and she demanded it be filled immediately. She’d been hurt in truth by this secret Jeremiah and Alex had kept from her, and Jeremiah told her everything he knew about her adoption and possible parentage as an apology. It wasn’t much. She didn’t learn anything new. From Alex’s end, her resolution to their rift had been to talk to Kara daily, usually in the evenings, about _everything,_ from here on out. It was a tough concept for a 15-year-old to follow through on, and something her sister did occasionally struggle with. But Alex being Alex she persevered, and now Kara thought, her sister liked the routine just as much as she did. Not that they weren’t bound to talk daily anyhow, because as two unclaimed residents of Hermes’s cabin, they literally slept in the same room. In Kara’s first week, Alex had even gone as far as trading her spot with Kara’s above bunkmate, so she could watch over her sister as best she could. That was also a pretty cool move for a third year. Alex was pretty mature for a 15-year-old in general, Kara thought.

_“If you make one soft comment or say anything even remotely nerdy about this, I’m moving again.” Alex grumbles as she launches her pillow and sheets onto the top mattress of their bunk. Kara sits quietly below smiles to herself._

Winn the Saytr had recovered himself from his earlier banter, and right now is on some spiel to her about his latest collaboration with Hephaestus Cabin. They’ve moved past the re-telling of her origin story and Winn is now safely plonked back on his seat. He was like a god himself to the younger demi-kids really, and he put the majority of the older inventors to shame. But to be fair to them, they hadn’t been adopted by cyclops and taught forge-work practically from birth. It did give the already-genius a bit of a one-up. Kara’s pretending to listen to what he’s saying. In fairness to her, she’s usually a great listener but something’s up. The air is tenser than it usually is. Kara knows that doesn’t quite make any sense to say but it’s the truth, she can… feel it almost. Something _big_ was about to happen.

“Kara?” Winn quizzes. Kara gestures for him to be quiet.

“Listen.” She says.

Winn tries to listen.

He hears nothing.

“I don’t hear anything?”

“Then wait.”

That’s when the ground beneath them begins to shake ever so slightly. Winn looks over at her in alarm and Kara’s immediate thought is of Alex. Right now, on the far side of the lake by the stables. Not the best time to be learning to ride the pegusi, but her sister should be fine. The quaking gets louder. Some of the camper’s start to scream, and there’s a cry from someone she doesn’t recognise to head over to the armoury to gear up for a fight. There are even more shouts from the councillor’s trying to evacuate the cabins. Aphrodite is the most recent to stream out, some are only half-dressed, and she spots a boy run out with pink curlers still attached to his hair. It wouldn’t be long until the call went out from Hermes’s too, and the war-bell rung at the big-house.

 “Kara-”

Winn grabs her arm. She didn’t realize she had headed from the porch automatically and toward all the action.

“Where are you going?” He asks.

 _Not to the armoury._ Is her first thought. It was a weird one, but Kara didn’t think they’d need weapons for whatever this was.

“We should stay in cover!” Winn tries to tell her. She shakes her head.

“It’s not a regular earthquake!”

She answers. Head scanning the horizon to find the source of their woes. It’s then she spots the building that seems to be shifting in the quake just a tad more than the others. Cabin 13. The quake had to be coming from there! Winn spots it when she does, thinks the same thought Kara does. Though his reaction is very different to her-own.

“Oh no, don’t be stupid! You’re not going in there Kara. If you go in there, J’onn will _crucify_ you.”

**_That is, if the Lord of the Underworld himself didn’t._ **

“Winn there could be someone in there that needs our help!” Kara whines, knowing that this is the exact way to win him over.

Winn rolls his eyes. No one in their right mind would ever go inside Cabin 13. There was absolutely no need for that at all. Ever. In fact, camp rules forbid it explicitly! There was no going inside the cabin of god that one wasn’t a child of. Plus, with the ominous skull mounted above the front door? And the green fire torches that burned next to it 24/7? No thanks. …that place gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“Kara don’t- “

And Kara’s headed in the direction of the complete disaster before Winn even has the chance to suggest otherwise. Dammit. Crap. …He should probably go and find Alex. Yeah, that’s what he’ll do.

\----

The inside of the cabin is dim. Not that Kara expected much else from the only cabin at Half-blood with no windows. Truthfully, she didn’t understand the premise behind that at all. Who would deny themselves a view of the sky? Or of the stars at night? Surely the potential children of the underworld would be satisfied by seeing such sad darkness later in the afterlife? They were all doomed to that reality after all, to eventually never see the alive and natural world again. So why bring feelings of that cold reality even closer? Obsidian also seemed a little too on-the-nose for her. She got it, all the campers did, edgy emo-vibes and all that. It would be cool if a Hades’ child broke the stereotype for once and wore something fluorescent yellow. That showed some _real_ punk vibes. Anyway, it was safe to say that Kara Danvers was never going to go through her goth phase, because absolutely nothing about this place held any appeal to her.

She works her way past the entrance hall, eying up the skull and bone alter as she does, (complete with minor golden décor) with distaste. At least the interior sconces were of normal colouring. Imagine living your life in a cabin full of green lighting, Kara might have gone insane. So far everything seemed perfectly normal, for Camp Half-blood anyway, but Kara’s interpretation of that immediately changes when she sees the state of the bedroom. Coffin beds. Of course. They were like a macabre version of the princess-castle bed Kara had wanted for her 8th birthday. But she had to admit that they were marginally more impressive, because these beds (all three) were king-size and four postered. Begrudgingly, she also has to admit to herself that the red-satin sheets are pretty classy.

It’s then, from the far side of the room, that she hears the sound of trickling water. Well that’s out of place. Was someone here? Kara stays quiet, now wishing she’d come inside bearing arms of some sort. She reminds herself that with the protective casts on the camp-boarder that nothing dangerous could have possibly found its way in. Nothing had penetrated the camp’s boarders since its inception after all. _Keep it cool, Danvers._ Cheekily, she elects to crawl over the empty beds, hoping that Hades’ doesn’t decide to smite her there and then for being so brazen. _She was just trying to help, hope he understood that._ Instead of travelling around the bedsides, she was hoping that the springs of the mattresses muffled her movement somewhat. With an irritated huff, she shoves away the netting of final bed’s curtains and pauses.

The sound is coming from behind a mahogany door, just beyond the far side of the bed, and barely a meter away from her. Another room? Where did it go and what could be behind it? Beneath the door, water has started to crawl out onto the granite floor and is approaching Kara by the second. Kara doesn’t really need a more obvious invitation. She climbs down from the bed, and edges closer to the golden door handle, sucking in a nervous breath as her hand grips on the knob. Here it goes. She shoves the door open.

Her eyes widen when she sees what’s behind it. A private bathroom that’s as big as Hermes’s sleeping quarters, decorated in a lighter brown marble. Well, she assumes it’s a bathroom, because there’s a toilet in the left corner of it, and a sink on a marble column placed to her right. _Why didn’t Hermes’s get a private bathroom?_   Well, private bathroom, cabin of one of the big three, should she really be so surprised? The cabin had already displayed some pretty obvious signs of elitism. The treasure she sees scattered across the room really drives that point through for her, though she’s fairly certain that it’s not supposed to be there. Especially all those gold coins in the sink…

The final thing Kara notices, (in retrospect it should’ve been the first) is the gigantic hole in the room’s back wall. The shower is missing. Or maybe it used to be a bath? (Does the assumption it was a bathroom at all make sense now?) And all that remains is torn copper piping, that twists and curls around the hole’s edge, giving it the illusion of having a mass of vile tentacles. These are what’s responsible for the pool of water that’s currently soaking through her sneakers. This bathroom was going to need some major renovations... Was hole the right word for it? Tunnel? Void? Whatever it was it ran deep, because Kara couldn’t see the back of it. In fact, it was so dark, that she found she couldn’t really see _into_ it either. This didn’t make any sense. On the other side of the wall was… nothing. There was no earth, this cabin was entirely exposed to the surface like the rest. Nothing could have gotten through the Camp’s defences. Kara reminds herself.

To answer her question there’s a clatter of what sounds like metal in the void. Kara’s eyes narrow. … _Well clearly something had._ Oh gods, she really should have bought a weapon. It was pretty naïve of her not to have done. But Kara still stands her ground and prays to whomever her godly parent may be for protection. There’s another clatter of metal. Kara swallows nervously. For a painful couple of seconds there’s complete quiet.

Then out of the darkness… rolls a crown.

Kara can’t quite believe her eyes. As in- a crown of solid gold, encrusted with jewels: rubies, pearls, sapphires, and other things besides she can’t name. It comes to a stop on its side at her feet. It doesn’t look Greek. It’s the first non-Greek thing she’s seen in what feels like forever. Solid gold, a mounted rim with fleur-de-lys and crosses… Christian symbols. It looked like one from the books she’d read as a child. It looked European. Medieval. This kept getting weirder and weirder. Her eyes flicker back up to the hole. Waiting for it to spew out anything else. It doesn’t. Her gaze is left to wonder back to the crown.

She bends to pick it up, half expecting it to burn her hands or something when she does; but to her relief, nothing happens. Kara releases a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in. Only to suck in another as she feels the cold press of a dagger suddenly against her neck. In her line of vision, she also spots a pair of sandaled women’s feet. _Shit._

Kara glances upward, partially forced by the dagger cutting into her skin, and is shocked by what she sees. It’s a girl. Perhaps her age, maybe a year older, with skin pale as death and dark brunette hair. But what draws Kara’s attention the most are her steely-green eyes. They hold an unmatched stubbornness and intelligence. Her demure almost, makes it seem like she could take on a titan and win. She’s wearing a matching emerald _chiton_ which is confusing in itself, and a leather belt with a small scabbard attached for her weapon _._ Dammit she must have emerged from the hole when Kara was busy grabbing the crown. …Kara has questions. Was she another camper? She could easily pass as one; though, Kara had never seen her around before. But the thing was, she didn’t exactly look like a monster either. Kara needed more information.

“Do you like the feeling of my dagger on your skin?”

The small girl smiles slyly. She tries to pass the comment off as threatening but she doesn’t fully succeed. She’s panting heavily, and the beads of sweat on her brow and dark circles under her eyes reveal to Kara that she’s probably ill. She actually looked ready to collapse at any second. Kara was sure she could take maybe one swing at her before she fell to the floor unconscious. Of course, because of this …Kara has _even more_ questions.

The blonde swallows nervously. The dagger is still raised to her neck after all.

“Where did you get that weapon? That’s celestial bronze.”

Kara asks sort of incredulous, trying to keep the tone of their conversation light. She’d never seen anyone with a God-given blade as young as she was.

 “They are. And I’m not afraid to use them.”

The girl threatens. Kara can feel herself give a (slightly condescending) smile at the girl’s bravery.

“Them?”

Kara raises an eyebrow, she could only see, _feel_ , the one dagger. This girl was delirious.

The jewel-eyed girl, pulls the weapon back from her neck, and passes a free hand over the surface of her dagger. And suddenly just like that she’s holding another. From a distance, she can see their pommels are emblazed with golden snake heads. One’s eyes shine emerald-green, and the other’s ruby-red, and she can see that they’re embellished with actual gemstones.  Then in one smooth motion, she flips the ruby one so it hangs upside down in her grasp. A matching pair. Woah. Okay, now Kara may have something to worry about. In her surprise, her grip loosens and she drops the jewelled crown to the floor. It releases a metalling clang as it hits the marble. She tries not to let her cheeks flare in embarrassment. Kara meant to do that.

The young girl now enters a fighting stance, and Kara’s _completely_ defenseless against her. She raises her hands to the sky in a gesture of submission.

“Woah, _easy_. I’m not planning to hurt you.”

“And nor I you, unless you come near me or take anything from this treasure pile, so stay back!”

Kara wants to counter with the argument that the girl lured _her_ to pick up the crown, and before this she had precisely zero intention of touching anything. But she doesn’t.

“Okay! Okay.”

Kara backs away slowly, and the dark-haired girl begins to lower her blades just a little. Who are you? She thinks to herself in wonder. Nothing about this girl was even remotely… normal.

“My name is Kara.” Kara says. Maybe if they got a dialogue going here then they’d both receive some answers.

“ _Lena_. Where am I?” The girl responds with a tinge of fear. Not really seeming to care who Kara may be at all.

Kara debates whether or not she should answer Lena truthfully. Alex would probably recommend approaching with a certain level of caution… well Kara hadn’t used any of that thus far, so, why start now? Kara was aware that she trusted everybody and that this was a major character flaw of hers that she should probably address at some point; but right now, seemed like a terrible time to start. She might regret this decision later… but Kara believed in showing kindness first.

“You’re inside Camp Half-Blood.” Kara answers her simply, looking behind Lena again and into the seemingly bottomless pit. “ _You tunneled-through the Earth?”_ She finishes incredulous. Kara isn’t sure if it’s a question or a statement.

“Yes, I know I traveled here through the Earth.” Lena answers her impatiently. “Now where am I in Half-Blood?”

Kara tries to assemble all the facts together in her brain. Lena had appeared through a giant hole in the “Earth”, _tunneled_ _through the Earth…_ but there was no physical Earth behind her. There couldn’t be. And she’d bought up these obscene amounts of treasure with her along the way… things that were strewn everywhere, she noticed: diamonds, gold coins, rubies, goblets, the by now familiar heavily-inlaid crown. …All this _strangeness_. The fates had twined them together in this time and place, this much Kara knew. This was- this was all a sign of something. Though what that something was to be yet, she did not know. It all suddenly clicks into place in Kara’s head. _Through the Earth…_ the Earth… the underworld… the treasure… where they were.

 "We’re inside _Hades’ Cabin.”_

Kara murmurs fascinated. Everything she’d seen, what Lena’d described, was all symbolic of the dominion of the Lord of the Underworld. Then that meant-

At the mention of Hades, the girl drops her knives, and a satisfied smile graces her lips. Then she releases a triumphant, and slightly maniacal laugh. Punching the air as an after thought. Kara's only known this girl briefly but the action seems rather out of character for her.

“ _Finally_ , I made it!" She hoots, then stops. And Kara can see what going to happen before she thinks Lena even does. The girl starts to sway, her eyes begin to flutter. All traces of joy lost to her body's complete exhaustion. She looks at Kara in mild panic.

“No hey, wait!” Kara scrambles forward, ready to catch the girl before she falls back unconscious onto the treasure pile below. The two land with an _oomph_ as they hit the ground. Kara catches most the pain from landing on all the rock and metal. The girl with the emerald eyes, Lena-something, lies blissfully unconscious in her arms, right where the shower used to be. All Kara can hear is the sound of trickling water from the pipes.

…Not going to lie, Lena’s sort of crushing Kara a little bit. _Oof_. Dead-weight and all.

\----

Lena’s head is pounding, and everything hurt, all over. But that was the price you paid for portalling places, especially all the way from the underworld. No God-given power was used without its toll by a demi-god. She probably has a fever, is super-dehydrated, and is maybe-possibly also delirious. She tries to open her eyes and it feels like someone has attempted to clamp them shut. She forces them open just a crack. Lena’s hearing also begins to come back to her.

 _“You’re an idiot, Kara.”_ _A young girl’s voice seethes. “You shouldn’t have come in here without permission. Specifically, J’onn’s permission. Or at least you should have waited for me.”_

She sounds hurt, and has dark red hair that Lena isn't familiar with. With Lena's eyes open just a crack, the rest of her face is obscured.

 _"Then where’s your permission to be here!”_ _The blonde girl begins to retaliate._

The blonde's head Lena notes, is really close to her face. In fact it's right above it. She recognizes that voice. It belonged too… Kara. That was the name of the girl she was talking too earlier. The one who Lena had threatened before… she fainted. She realizes her head is resting on something soft. A leg? And is someone stroking her hair? Lena didn’t do physical contact. She wants to sit up and complain, but feels the darkness closing in on her again.

 _“Hey are you awake?” She hears the red haired girl ask in surprise_.

…A smart one. Lena liked her already. It’s the last thing she thinks to herself before she falls back into the black.

\----

In the med-bay of what Lena Luthor had learned was called ‘The Big House’ (which she had also learned acted as the camp’s reception), Lena gratefully sips at her goblet of ambrosia. She could feel it quickly healing her body as she listened and answered whatever J’onn wanted to know. _Yes_ , she was a child of Hades, _Yes_ , she was related to Lex, the infamous Imperator at Camp Jupiter. _Yes_ , they were siblings and their dumb-ass father had appeared to their same mother in his different forms. _Yes_ , she was sure was Greek and not Roman. Hades himself had clarified that to her very young. How old was she? _14._ Did she portal out of the underworld? _Yes_. What was she doing in the underworld? _No answer._ … _Could she stay here?_

“I- yes. Of course. As long as you like…”

Mr. J’onz had looked visibly stunned at that question. It was no wonder. Lena was the first child of Hade’s the camp had recognised since the second world war. And it was a strange and unexpected way to arrive at the institution, Lena couldn’t argue with that at all. The camp director had left her bedside pretty soon after that. Probably to seek some advice from Dionysus or something, Lena didn’t know. She takes another sip of ambrosia. The soothing brew relaxes her and makes her feel _light_ for what feels that first time in months. There’s a soft knock at her door, and the Lena curiously cocks her head to the side.

“Come in!”  She pleasantly greets. Keeping her wariness to herself.

It’s the blond girl, Kara. She looks pretty much the same as she did earlier, dressed in her camp t-shirt and floral shorts. And those disastrous red high-tops. Those make Lena cringe a little.The only difference is that this time, Kara’s wearing a pair of glasses. Lena takes another sip of her ambrosia. She was maybe what? A year younger than her?

“ _Hi_.” The girl shyly says, pushing the tip of her specs back up her nose.

“Hi.” She answers back curtly. The blond may have found her, and helped her, but that didn’t mean they had to be _friends_.

“I just came in to see if you were doing okay… and to um- give you back this.” Kara produces Lena’s dagger from behind her back and smiles bashfully as she does so. It's kind of cute. ...In an annoying nerdy way. Lena decides she sort of likes making Kara blush.

“It’s cool how it’s eyes do that thing-” Kara continues.

The girl makes a wibbly gesture with her hands. Lena smiles, knowing what she’s referring too immediately.

“When  _Venomous_ is in her one form. One of her eyes is green, and the other red.” Lena fondly informs her. “It tells me that she's whole. Thank you for returning her to me.”

Kara nods. She noticed the blade had morphed back into one shortly after Lena had fallen unconscious. It was a smart weapon. …Something special that deserved to be looked after by its rightful owner. If she’d let Alex or J’onn know that Lena had threatened her with it, she wasn’t sure how they’d treat the poor girl; so, she’d kept that part to herself. Lena makes little cooing noises and for a moment Kara frowns. Was Lena talking to her dagger? She watches in complete shock as the pommel comes alive and extends out into a much larger golden snake. Lena’s still holding on to its handle. Okay, she had… no idea it did that.

Lena softly chuckles.

“It’s okay, _Venomous_ likes you. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have let you return her to me.” Lena nods at her with some respect. “It’s a good sign. My daggers usually don’t like anybody.”

Did Kara just imagine that or did the snake just nod at her in confirmation? Kara's eyes flicker to Lena, who seems to be looking at her for the first time in a way that isn’t… cold. She promptly forgets about the snake thing. Or tries too, it's sort of hard when Lena was lying there stroking the thing. Perhaps she’d just made a new friend! The fates thing nags quietly at the back of her mind.  _Just who was this girl other than a child of Hades?_  And why did Kara feel like she was going to be oh so important?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, hope you like the chapter! Feel free to comment, bookmark and leave Kudos, because writer's (and me!) love it when you do.
> 
> Fun fact: Venomous was based on the LGBT Large knives, Guns, Blades, TWO knives post. And for that reason venomous is an avid trans-ally. S/O to any trans readers I may have because y'all RULE and I love you. 
> 
> On a seperate note lmao, hope all your summers are going great!
> 
> Nothing but Love, 
> 
> Britishgal  
> oxoxo


	3. Year Two

#  Year Two

###  Chapter 3

Month two of year two at Half-Blood for Kara a lot of things were changing. Alex had abandoned her at Hermes cabin this year, when she excitedly got claimed by Athena (the goddess of knowledge), in opening week’s bonfire. This particular parental claim doesn’t surprise Kara at all. There was no better a divine match as far as she was concerned, and of course she was absolutely _delighted_ for her sister! Kara actually squealed in joy and rushed over and hugged Alex for at least a solid two minutes in fact, then and there! Over the summer Alex also happened to come out as a lesbian and had happily announced to Kara at the beginning of term that she had been speaking this girl called Maggie, who was also a demi-god, and the daughter of the minor goddess Dike. She isn’t certain but… Kara’s pretty sure they’re now dating on the DL.

Alex is starting her fourth year at Camp half-blood, which is crazy. Her sister is now a seasoned veteran of the establishment and has been on a couple of minor-quests herself! J’onn the camp director, had seen her ‘potential’, and had decided to take her under his wing as a mentee. That means her sister got all these things like… extra lessons, and _homework_. Ew. Still, Kara’s just _waiting_ for something that amazing to happen to her. All-in-all though, for an eight-week period, it was safe to say there had been a considerable amount of excitement. The problem was, not a lot of it had been headed in _her_ direction, and that’s why Kara had beef. That was about to change however! Sometimes, if you wanted interesting things to happen to you, you just had to make ‘em.

…This is what she’s thinking as she strolls into the stable-yard.

“ _Miss Danvers_ , I think you’ll find that you’re in the wrong class!”

J’onn comments suspiciously. But there’s a light twinkle of amusement in his eyes that let’s her know he’s at least willing to hear her out her reasoning for being here.

“Just because we let you move up a year in your weapons class, does not mean that the rule extends to all your studies!”

“Especially if it’s Politiks.”

Someone sniggers rather unkindly in the background.

_Well they all had their weaknesses._

“Aw, c’mon J’onn! My sister’s been raving to me about how amazing the pegusi are for the last two years! She mentioned them this morning to me _again_ , and I found I couldn’t take it anymore, I just _had_ to come and see them! You’ve gotta let me pet them at least?”

Kara beams her absolutely most charming smile at the centaur and J’onn of course sees right through it. That was a terrible attempt at manipulation. It was safe to assume at this point that the younger Danvers was not a born politician. But J’onn Jon’z would admit, that he had a particular soft spot for the Danver’s sisters. Alex was _astoundingly_ smart, and Kara was already one of the bravest and strongest teenagers (both mentally and physically) that he’d ever met. Not to mention both had hearts of pure gold. Jeremiah had done an astounding job raising them. It was a pleasure to have worked with the man in the past, and to be able to work with his kids now.

“If you attend these classes, I still expect your Regular Advanced Riding Class to progress as normal.”

The ‘regular’ part of Advanced Riding, was that the creature they learnt to mount was merely an ordinary horse.

“Deal!” Kara immediately agrees.

It was only two hours extra of classes per week, and Kara LOVED animals, so it could hardly be considered a chore for her to spend more time with them!

J’onn’s convinced the 14-year-old has other reasons for being here. Perhaps though, Kara isn’t even aware of them herself yet? He watches with some degree of amusement as the girl immediately gravitates toward Lena Luthor, and his suspicions seem to confirm themselves. She pauses half-way to high-five James Olsen, whom Cat Grant had chosen to fight Kara in her assessment of skill. It was from there the two had determined that she belonged among the upper years for combat training. Kara was a gifted swordswoman. Though surely her nature was too in-conflict with those held by other children of Ares for her to be a possible daughter of war? The fact the young girl hadn’t been claimed yet, and yet showed such signs of promise bothered him greatly. But he could analysis Kara another time, for now he had a class to teach. J’onn turns his head back toward his class and starts his introductive speech.

“Hey!” Kara winks, sliding in beside Lena and her mount. A beautiful creature, rather humorously dubbed Elektra.

“Took you long enough!” The pale girl grins back shyly. “Only promised you’d be here a month ago.”

Kara bows her head to the floor, cheeks burning with slight embarrassment.

“We both know my time management could do with some work.”

“Your time management wouldn’t need any work if you could bear to be apart from me for a couple of hours a day.” Lena teases.

Kara playfully nudges her best friend in the side. It was only mildly annoying that all her closest friends were older than her. Lena, despite her getting here almost a year after Kara, was entered into the curriculum of the year above without much hesitation. Okay, yes, she was a year older than her anyway, and she already knew that she was a demi-god. (She had known that her whole life apparently, so that was intense…) But Kara had also been shocked to learn that Lena was a genius. Not like- _Alex_ level smart, or even _Winn_ level smart but like _genius_ level genius. As in, she re-defined the boundaries for what should be considered entry level super-smart. _Lena-was-smarter-than-Stephen-Hawking level smart._ It was sort of scary.

Certainly, when she’d first arrived, her intelligence had caused a great stir for the camp directors. In fact, for her first three weeks, Lena had no classes whatsoever because they were still deciding on what to do. Eventually however, the girl had gotten bored with her free-time, and so decided to follow Kara into _her_ lessons instead. She wasn’t really sure why the girl had elected to do this, but because of it they’d gotten pretty close. Kara had had a great time showing off to her on the games-track and she in return had been the test subject for many of Lena and Winn’s prototypes in the forge. The two together one of these days were going to cause a nuclear explosion, and Kara was _not_ looking forward to witnessing it.

At the beginning of second year, Lena had transferred to third year lessons, to appease her father and to keep J’onn and the Camp’s pestering of her at bay. Kara missed her immensely; in truth a part of her felt somewhat missing without her newly-acquired lab partner. Lena said it was a waste really, that it was still all too simple for her, and Kara had to agree, now having seen the full extent of what the daughter of Hades’ was capable of. There were some unique third-year perks like pegusi access however that Lena was quite fond of. That comment of her’s was the inspiration for this idea. With both the gushing reviews from Lena AND Alex? Kara _had_ to find a way into the pegusi lessons early and see for herself. Besides, there was no way her best friend was doing everything cool a year before she did.

Lena didn’t seem to mind Kara’s ‘mild competitiveness’ if you could call it that. Rather, something about the girl’s FOMO was rather endearing to her. Maybe because Lena could empathize. She always felt left behind whenever Lex bought out some show stopping invention or learned some new talent without her knowledge. On top of this, she was actually pretty excited the girl had weaselled her way into some of Lena’s classes. Lena found it hard to make new friends, so having Kara around made her feel a lot calmer. Plus, she found herself missing the younger blonde whenever she wasn’t around.

Anyway, despite the true feelings of both of them, Kara’s quick to mount a defence against Lena’s claims.

“I come here for James too! I love you both, don’t be so big-headed! It just feeds into what people think of you.”

Kara thinks she teases, but Lena’s face winces just for a second before she hides it. Kara immediately notices. Ah hell, she’d screwed up.

“Hey, I’m sorry, no, that wasn’t cool of me.” Kara’s quick to apologise.

“It’s alright Kara. I don’t care what they think.”

Lena clips back curtly, and Kara opens her mouth to begin an extremely long apology. Fuck, she forgot how sensitive Lena could be to any slights. Dammit Kara was such a horrible person.

“Miss Luthor, Miss Danvers, since you seem to have been paying such close attention to my teachings, how would the two of you like to go first?” J’onn says.

“Sorry what?” Kara blurts back.

She had no idea what the Camp Director had been talking about.

“To go riding? On the back of your mount?” J’onn hints, then turns to face the class again. “You’ve all spent a solid period of time learning how to appropriately take care of your pegusi, and now it’s time for you all to reap your reward. Kara, it would seem you’ve joined us at an exciting transitional period. I’m only allowing you to fly, because of Miss Luthor’s hard work these last few weeks, and because she still needs a partner.”

Lena blushes fully at the openly made comment. Like she’d thought to herself earlier, making friends… did not come to her easily.

Kara thought only the one rider… went y’know, _riding_ at a time. Alex had never mentioned any doubling-up to her?  She glances to the saddle of Elektra and she enough, can only see the one seat strapped to her back.

J’onn continues his briefing, unaware of the awkwardness the two girls are feeling.

“You’re pairing up today. You’ve been trained to ride bare-back haven’t you Kara?”

Uhhhhhh _, technically_ she had, in last week’s Advanced Riding Course, but J’onn had to know that she couldn’t have practised for that long.

“I mean yes- but-”

“Then it’s settled!”

 _Wait no_. _What? No_. Kara hadn’t agreed to this! J’onn continues on none-the-less.

“Miss Luthor will act as driver, with her being the more experienced, and you as passenger. Prepare to mount at any time. Don’t worry, I’ll guide both you to the launch track. The rest of you? Stand behind me and observe.”

She gives a sideward glance at Lena. Lena looks… a little bit concerned, but more than anything, determined. Lena was as stubborn as all the vows made on the _Styx_. If someone was challenging her ability? Damn right Lena would take them up on it! Kara supposed if _she_ had been officially diagnosed as one of the most intelligent humans to ever have existed, then she wouldn’t have acted any differently either. Someone calling you incapable when you were that well renowned for being brainy seemed like a pretty obvious offense. Kara watches as Lena sets her jaw in place, and without another word the girl mounts the Pegasus. It’s smooth and unhurried. Looking down at her from the saddle, Lena looks almost regal, and Kara has to stop her jaw opening in mild appraisal. Lena extends her hand downward and Kara takes it, boosting herself up and onto the back using the metal saddle stirrup. The beast’s flank is rather comfortable, actually.

J’onn moves forward to take their reins, and slowly they’re guided out of the forest and around to a lengthy clearing. There’s nothing at the end of it, but a large pile of rubble and dirt, where a few weeds have cheekily decided to try and thrive. This must be the ‘runway’ J’onn had been referring too. Though that was pushing it really, it looks more like an especially broad mountain bike trail. Why had Kara never seen this before?

The path extends for about maybe 50 meters. Did that provide Elektra with enough distance for take-off? She had no idea what the acceleration period for a Pegasus was. Kara’s thinking that just maybe she may have been pushing her luck here. But she was all saddled-up now, so… guess there was no going back. She prays Lena knows what she’s doing.

“Right. Kara, you might want to thread your arms around Lena’s waist, seeing as there’s not much else for you to hold on to.”

J’onn deadpans.

“Lena, don’t try any fancy tricks today. Remember, Kara’s not strapped in. Next week we’ll tackle loop-de-loops and upside-down flight. If you attempt that this time around, your partner will plummet to her death. Class, this is _NO_ laughing matter!”

J’onn scolds the light sniggering that had abrupted with his comment. Lena can’t help but laugh quietly too. Dark humour was _so_ her thing.

“At thirty meters from the stone heap kick _once_. At twenty, kick _twice_. From thereon out, your mount should take care of you and launch into the air at the appropriate moment. Kick earlier, and your mount will go unnecessarily fast, and things might go wrong for you. Do _not_ do things that endanger your life unnecessarily. I want three laps of the Camp boundary, and then I want you to land safely back here. _Do you understand Danvers?”_

Hey, why did _Kara_ get the brunt of that passive-aggression?

“Yes, Sir.”

Lena answers for them both.

“Good. Then on you go!” J’onn finishes, lightly slapping the Pegasus’ rear to get them moving.

At first the trot is slow. _Too slow_. To the point where Lena’s finding it a tad irritating, and they’ve only progressed a couple of meters. So, she does what any competent Pegasus’ rider would do, and she nudges the winged-horse’s flank a tad earlier than she should. _Once_. Lena waits all of two seconds before she does it again. _Twice_. Perhaps she’d been a tad impatient, because the result is MUCH more rapid than she expects. Soon they’re absolutely speeding down the pathway. _Fast. Like seriously ridiculously fast, woah!_

Kara yelps as the beast begins to pick up speed, her arms wrapping tightly around Lena’s waist. Lena’s still pretty confident in herself despite her potential faux-pas. She feels in control, she’s totally got this! The key in a crisis was to _keep calm_. Besides, they weren’t dead, and it was a good sign that they hadn’t been thrown yet, so maybe things weren’t destined to exactly as J’onn suggested.

Lena thinks briefly about Kara’s reaction. The way her arms had instantly wrapped around her waist. The memory causes Lena to both smirk with confidence, and do something she really probably shouldn’t.

“ _YAH!_ ”

She kicks into the beast’s side a _third_ time, and the Pegasus is more than willing to grant them a whole heap of extra swiftness. The wind starts to rush by Lena’s ears with a roar, and the pile of rock begins to move toward them at an alarming rate.

Kara squeals.

“Leeeeeeee-na! _Woah!_ ”

Lean let’s out a maniacal laugh. They’re now beating along the dirt-track so fast, that a dust-cloud several meters in height behind them is forming. Lena knows this because she’s curious enough to look back over her shoulder to check on their rapidly shrinking classmates. A couple of them are actually whooping in encouragement. Lena’s never been more popular!

When the sound of crunching gravel beneath the Pegasus’ hooves begins to quieten, then in fact disappears completely, Lena turns forward again. Just like that, she notices, and they’re airborne. They’re just in the air, _floating_. Though of course they’re not, the heavy-beating wings above her knees are clue enough about that. Those are quieter than she thought they would be; as silently powerful as the stride of an elephant. Looking above her, at how the clouds seem almost close enough for her to touch, Lena can’t quite believe her eyes. Honestly? Kara can’t either. _Once she’s brave enough to open them._

_“Woah.”_

The blonde exclaims yet again. But this time near all trace of fear is gone from her voice. Instead, it’s filled with pure wonder. They were flying! It was a scene taken straight from one of Kara’s dreams. Just as vivid, and real, no _more_ real because this time she was awake! When she hugs Lena tighter, this time its gentler, and softly affectionate. Kara’s grateful the older girl had overcome her adversity to hugs and human contact. That certainly made this experience FAR less awkward that it would have been. _This!_ The sky, the clouds, the light warmly touching her face; was amazing.

Lena’s never felt more comfortable. She should be more afraid; her _uncle_ could strike her down at any moment. The sky certainly, was not a place that was guarded by forces that liked her. For a child of Hades’, Lena was actually quite _fond_ of open spaces, and she was lucky not to be any degree agoraphobic, which apparently was a typical family trait. Okay maybe to begin with perhaps she was a tad more nervous to enter Zeus’s realm than she’d let on, but Lena knew that wasn’t going to be a lasting issue. With Kara by her side, Lena always felt bolder. She wondered if that was something that her best friend actually knew? How would Kara react to knowing that that? Lena wasn’t sure. Perhaps the other girl felt the same?

Below them the camp begins to look like a model village. Some sort of perfect fantasy thing Lena’s built to escape her troubled life back home. Although, not a product of her construction, she supposed in a way that’s exactly what it had become. She’s grateful for Hades’ for once for guiding her here. Her thoughts drift back to the ride. Thus-far, she’d actually left most the directional responsibilities to their winged-horse, who was still rising them higher and in the direction of the camp’s boarders.

She’s about to issue some orders, but Kara seems to read her mind, and stops her by shaking her head. _Let it do it’s thing._ Her eyes seem to say, so reluctantly, Lena does.

Given a little longer, the beating of the beast’s wings begins to slow. It would seem they’d risen to their maximum altitude, just below cloud level. Lena shivers, it was getting pretty cold to be wearing only an orange t-shirt. The pegusus’ playfully spreads its wings and begins to glide them. Lena notices gentle curve they’re taking right will keep them safe within the camp.

Both girls admire the scene for a while, getting a feel for the calm. There’s no rush to plan anything, but Kara’s doing that exact same thing. Her eyes glue to her favourite place in the camp, and she suddenly has a brilliant idea of her own.

“Get Elektra to take us over the water!” Kara suggests.

Though with the sounds of the wind, rushing through their ears, it makes it pretty difficult for Lena to hear her.

“What?” She calls out.

Kara just beams at her, and points in the direction of the water. Lena likes the way she thinks.

_“Better hold on even tighter then Danvers!”_

Lena calls out, before she motions for the creature to dive down. Though if Kara took her up on that offer, Lena might lose a degree of her functional lung capacity.

\----

On the other side of the lakeshore, Alex Danvers is lying peacefully beside her girlfriend on their red-and-white picnic mat. Maggie’s hand is intertwined with hers, and Alex is trying to not to grin like a nut as she strokes the outside of Maggie’s thumb. Thursday’s free period was their designated date day and for once weather was absolutely perfect.

“But I just don’t see the evolutionary benefit of having ONE eye. I mean-”

Maggie pauses their debate mid-sentence and Alex has to open her eyes. Instantly, Alex sit’s up in alarm expecting the worst.

“What is it?”

Maggie’s frowning and staring at the far side of the lake. Alex follows her line of vision and sure enough sees a white figure (of what she assumes is a Pegasus?) with two smaller figures in orange shirts clinging onto it, streamlining almost vertically toward the surface of the lake.

“Is that _your sister_?” Maggie gasps.

Alex’s heart plummets, and she squints at the camper’s, trying to make them out. They both appear to be female, with their long and flowing hair. One’s is black and the back-rider’s is a familiar shade of blonde. Both are screaming and laughing with delight at the discovery of their mobile rollercoaster.

Alex lies back down: _mortified_.

“Nope.” She shakes her head vehemently. “Not Kara.”

**_How did her sister even sneak her way into that class?_ **

Maggie smiles knowingly at her. Alex’s blushing face and clipped tone totally gives the truth away. She gives her a playful shove. The daughter of Athena really needed to improve on her poker-face or it was going to get them into some _serious_ trouble. Anyway, Maggie sends out a wave to Kara and her friend and hopes that they see it.

\----

The splash of lake-spray on Kara glasses (and the rest of her) as they level out just above its surface, causes both girls to cry out even more in joy. Kara’s heart is booming in her chest. She’s never felt so wildly free. Lena is _sopping_ in front of her of course, and that just makes it all the better.

“Thanks for taking one for the team!” Kara calls out to her.

“Next time _you_ take the front!” Lena cheerfully shouts back, her green eyes blazing with excitement. She’d definitely need a warm shower after this, but who cared?

Gladly! Kara thinks, watching their reflection shimmer and warp in the depths of the blue. Confidently, she releases her hands from Lena’s waist and spreads her arms out wide. Feeling the current of air flowing playfully around them.

“Woooooooooooooooooooo!”

Kara yells out triumphant. A couple of spectators along the lake-side she notices turn around to see what the fuss is all about. Kara doesn’t the least bit feel self-conscious, let them stare! …This was totally worth the extra hours. Even the time they spend being punished for disobeying J’onn was totally going to be worth it.

\----

At the end of their ride, when she leaps off the horse, Kara’s still so unbelievably high on adrenalin that her legs are shaking a little. Or maybe that was from how hard she was grasping on to the pegusi’s sides? It was pretty difficult to tell. She gives their mount a friendly pat on the side, and a single soft stroke down her muzzle; Marvelling at the sleekness of the horse’s muscular frame and design.

“Thank you, Elektra.”

The Pegasus gives back a soft snort. Kara thinks that means the beast enjoyed their adventure too.

She holds out a hand for Lena to hold, and taking it, her driver elegantly hops off their ride.

“What are you grinning at me like that for?” Lena smiles, as she attempts to wring out the front of her t-shirt.

Honestly, Kara hadn’t noticed that she was. A small blush creeps across her cheeks. Kara thinks she’s so happy because… well, _Lena_ is. She’d known the girl was brave, had known it since she’d arrived so uniquely at camp in fact. But Kara wasn’t in most of Lena’s classes now, and all their free-time was for the most part chilled and uneventful. Point was, they’d never done anything like _this_ together, Kara had never seen this free-spirited part of her before! Lena Luthor in her experience, was usually much more reserved. But now Lena’s eyes are shinning as vibrantly green as newly cut grass in summer. Kara really _liked_ this side of her. Paired with her stupidly pale complexion, and her raven hair matted from the wet, Lena looks like some sort of siren or water-nymph. _The tales of drowning men, lured to death by beautiful sea-women_ suddenly make a bit more sense to Kara.

“You look like a drowned rat!” Kara laughs.

Of course, Lena doesn’t, could _never_ \- Kara only says it because of the odd direction of her thought. It was a really poor attempt to quieten the slight panic she feels about realizing Lena’s actually _beautiful_ , and luckily the girl elects to shyly smile back at her. It seems the girl hasn’t taken the comment to heart thank the gods. You had to be careful what you said around Lena, her mother… had said some things that had deeply affected her confidence. Kara’s never met the evil woman and hoped for Lena’s sake she never did. It wasn’t her job to intervene in their relationship, but she could try and build Lena’s confidence the best she could!

Kara frowns, it’s then she spots the tangled pond-weed in the other girl’s hair. Without really thinking and glowing with warmth, she steps forward to remove it, pulling the slimy thing away and throwing it disgustedly to the floor. She’s centimetres away from the other girl’s face when she hears the Lena’s sharp intake of breath. She leans back to look the girl in the eyes, ready to ask her what’s wrong, only to find that Lena’s staring at her… looking mildly surprised. _Greener. They somehow looked even greener up this close._ Her eyes, that was. Kara swallows nervously. He thoughts seems to come to her slower all of a sudden, as if they’re emerging through a thick fog. _Had she done something wrong?_ Her eyebrows knit together concerned. This feels different, she feels… flustered. Her chest feels suddenly unbearably tight. _When did the mood change?_ They’re still looking at one another, neither of them speaking. It can only have been milliseconds but this moment is feeling timeless to her. Why was she so nervous? Her eyes fall to the redness of Lena’s lips and they linger there a bit too long. **Snap out of it Danvers.** Lena was her friend. She shakes head and steps back, quickly tucking a strand of loose hair behind Lena’s ear.

Kara excuses herself and coughs.

“Sorry that was um-”

“-Pondweed.” Lena blinks back quickly. Apparently just as dazed and panicked as she is.

“Yeah, you had um- plant in your hair.” Kara uneasily laughs. _How had that gotten there, ey?_

“Great ride though!”

“Oh, great ride. Yeah.”

“We should… probably walk Elektra back.”

Lena motions, already moving round to the front of the Pegasus to grab its reins. Kara doesn’t see the scared look pass across Lena’s face as she moves in front of her or observe her nervous lip bite as she does.

“ _Yes!_ We’re in a lesson, totally forgot about that.”

Very good point. They hadn’t exactly done as J’onn had asked and lapped the Camp. Hadn’t even done it three times …or landed where he’d told them too. It looked like the girls were deep into the capture-the-flag arena... at least they hadn’t disrupted a match, or any other lessons. Kara does a small rotation to get her bearings. J’onn could only be about 200 meters west, they weren’t that far from the landing zone. _Oh god they were in so much trouble, weren’t they?_

“We don’t want to get you special privileges revoked either.” Lena winks.

Kara just gives a light laugh in response and hopes it covers her nerves.

…So, they were just going to ignore whatever that weirdness was? Thank the _Lethe_.

Kara only thinks about the incident maybe 20 times over the next couple of days. With considerable effort this drops to about twice a week by the end of the year. Over summer the memory of it is nearly forgotten, and their relationship back to the way it was, without much question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES! THERE ARE PLURAL PEGUSI BECAUSE MORE THAN ONE SHOULD AND DOES EXIST IN THIS WORLD :) Also sorry for the slow update, have been writing this backwards, so... yeah. The rest shall be quick to follow I hope. I'm not quite happy with the flirty scene, and will amend it at some point, probably? Romance is hard to write when you're not in the mood.... I also feel like the whole chapter's somehow not detailed enough... hmn.
> 
> Anyway, hope y'all like it besides! As usual feel free to comment with any questions and things for me! Kudos and bookmarks are also hella appreciated, as is any interaction with me on tumblr! Come chat to me @hopepunking (but keep your hate / weird shit to yourself please and thanks!) 
> 
> Hope your summers are GREAT!
> 
> Britishgal
> 
> oxoxo


	4. Year Three

#  Year 3

###  Chapter 4

She tumbles through the brush, thorns and nettles mercilessly scraping at her bare skin as she hurtles past them. She’s barely looking at the ground, eyes focused solely on where she’s going, Kara _begs_ for the appearance of the god’s damned river-bed. It couldn’t be far. Certainly, it had to be less that 100 meters away.

“Don’t let her get away!”

The voice of Maxwell Lord bellows after her.

“She’s got our flag!”

Cries out another voice that she doesn’t recognise.

Kara can barely contain the excitement and adrenalin coursing through her veins. Strapped to her back, along with her shield, is Athena cabin’s flag _(Sorry Alex!)_ : light-blue and baring the image of a white owl. Also, on the opposing team? Ares, Aphrodite, Demeter and Apollo. Kara didn’t feel too guilty for winning capture-the-flag, because even her sister had to admit, their current head councillor was a bit of a knob. She was sure Alex would actually find them outsmarting Maxwell Lord pretty damn hilarious.

Apollo had a new head, and he himself was nowhere to be seen, Mon-El was no doubt making a play for their flag himself on the other side of the valley. He was a warrior like her, not a strategist, and wasn’t likely to play defensively even if Lord had specifically requested it. Mon was voted in as leader this year via his popularity amongst his siblings, and not really anything else. Of course, the new title had gone right to his head. She liked the guy, but sometimes his ego and over-confidence drove her mad.

Team H, (or Kara’s team) consisted of Hephaestus, and Hades’ (Lena). That provided Hermes’s cabin with what? Five extra people? Which sounded laughably pathetic, but Hermes’s didn’t _need_ allies exactly. With their sheer number of unclaimed members, and their new allies, they exceeded the total count of the other team by two. It was an inequality that Ares could easily resolve however by summoning up some undead soldiers; which wasn’t creepy at all, and Kara was _totally_ cool with. She’s asked Lena if she could do the same if they needed it, but apparently that wasn’t a thing Hades’ kids could do. It seemed they had a bit of an _underpowered_ big-three kid. A child of Poseidon, now _THAT_ would have been useful. Hephaestus were only with Hermes’ out of their current quarrel with Aphrodite Cabin. It seemed very typical, but Kara couldn’t complain. Hephaestus always bought their high calibre weaponry and with the high degree of wear and tear of the equipment of Hermes’ this was always appreciated.  To show spirit to their new-found alliance, team H were bearing Hephestus’ orange flag, emblazoned with red flame. Historically, before the fire symbol, the flag of Hephaestus had been a hammer, but that had looked suspiciously communistic, and well after the cold war and all… the camp had elected to change it.

It’s then Kara spots the shimmer of moonlight among the trees.

_Bingo!_ _Water!_ Maybe 30 meters away, Kara was nearly there! Just a wade through the knee-deep, ice-cold water back onto their home turf and they’d win!

Their plan had gone exceptionally thus far. The right side of the arena was far flatter than the left, and scattered with small ruins, one of which included a crumbling but still semi-functional watchtower. On the far perimeter was a smallish clearing, or grove, and the two of these were the designated flag-sites. The leader of the group got to pick where the flag went, so part of their strategy involved figuring out which Morgan and Maxwell had picked as their base-of-operations. There was no way Mon-El had any influence there, all strategy on their side had to have come from _Edge-Lord_ , as the cruel duo were unhappily known.

_“Morgan’s a child of Demeter, and being him, he’s going to want to terraform all he can. But he’ll need the space to do it in.”_

_Lena murmurs around their war-table. The left side of the arena, their side, was upward slope, with a cave system reaching from the river-side to half way up. To make up for their high-ground advantage however, there was little woodland and their land was mostly grassy field. Athena’s team would know where they were, and there were limited in what new space they could create to hide. …This time around, the best defence was a good offence. Hephaestus were already working on electric land mines to surround them. They were primed to do no more than stun and were no more harmful than being tasered._

_“So, you think he’ll be in the grove then?” James asks._

_Athena team, with Demeter’s assistance, could make their own natural defences; ones that hadn’t been mapped._ _By the Phlegethon! Edge could possibly even make a maze of sorts, provided he gave his time to plan it, and Kara and Co would have no way of navigating it… Lena chews on the inside of her lip. The grove made sense for Edge’s team, but what about Athena? Maxwell, where would he be?_

_Lena’s eyes flicker to the watch tower. Impenetrable stone, impervious to Hephestus’ fire; it would be much more defendable and he’d have closer access to the lower cave on their side of the river. Perhaps he’d begin there with Ares and Apollo? Spare the attacking team some travel time. …It made sense. Split them all up. Lena would have assigned Apollo to take the above land and Ares the job of the caves. It was up to her to stop them from finding the Hephaestus flag and capturing it. Safe to say Lena would be doing a fair amount of ground remodelling. Good thing the underworld was her element._

_“We need the younger years spread out along the forest, defending our shore-line, with two Hephaestus kids to lead them. James, we need to you to take our best fighter’s and attack the tower, they’ll be based there to make us think they may have the flag. Take the tunnel system to get there, and don’t stray too far from the river! Keeping Athena occupied might also attract some children of Ares; so be prepared to kill some zombies._

_“And me?” Kara blinks. Lena hadn’t mentioned her at all yet!_

_“What do plants hate that forger’s love?”_

_“Fire.” James adds warily._

_Kara think’s she knows where Lena is going with this. Only one child of Hephaestus could conjure up flame, and they were…_

_“Kara, James, have you met Leslie Willis?”_

_The angsty little twelve-year-old on cue elects that moment to enter the room. Not that she was a homicidal pyromaniac, …but maybe she was boarder-line. Certainly, you wouldn’t guess it from the surface but her light blue eyes and platinum blonde hair held a monster beneath. That was true at least if you believed the origin stories about her burning down her orphanage. But if she was a beast, she was one Cat Grant thought she could tame, so for the time being, Kara trusted her._

_“You’re strong, you’re swift, I need you to take Leslie to the far grove, capture the flag, and then I need you to burn the grove down. Cause as big of a distraction as you can, in an attempt to take some pressure off of James. I think… the flag’s more likely to be there to be honest, but I can’t confirm it for sure.”_

_Lena’s like 80/20 torn on that estimate, and she’s unwilling to bet more on it._

_“Hold on, you think the flag might only maybe be there?”_

_Lena shrugs uselessly as she tries to give her best reasoning._

_“I think it will be there because it’s further away, and it’s naturally harder to reach. If Athena work together then they have a strong attack force; the diversity of their powers makes them… formidable to us. Demeter and Apollo are natural defenders… but Ares and Athena alone can’t take us because we’d outnumber them by four maybe five people. So, it’s wiser for them to take an all-in approach. They’ll attack. Hard. …Which is why I need you James to stay on that tower; don’t let them cross over to us. Demeter will be the only defence I’m sure if it, and Edge will take the flag to as safe a place as he can. Which is the grove, because he can terra-form there, and it will be away from all the combat.”_

_Leslie could burn anything he grew as defence, a wall of thorns, any maze. She’d be much more effective than Kara trying to hack her way into the grove by force._

_“And what are you planning to do?”_

_“I’ll stay back here with Gayle, and make sure our flag is safe. Her techno-kinesis may come in handy.”_

_“Well when doesn’t it?” Gayle comments from the corner of the cave. They didn’t nickname the Head of Hephaestus “Psi” for nothing. Operating machinery with her mind was hefty stuff. Not to mention a pretty awesome power to weild the 21 st century._

_Lena snaps her fingers in front of Kara’s vision._

_“Are you still listening to me? Because both of you, there’s more-”_

Suddenly Kara’s yelling as she crashes to the floor in the present. Kara squirms to see the culprit of her misfortune: an exposed root that has no purpose being that visible. Then, out of nowhere a wall of roses seems to spring up around her. The scent of them quickly fills her nostrils, more overbearing than cheap mall perfume. Shit. It would seem Morgan had caught up to her.

She tries to scramble to her feet but feels pain rocket up her leg. Kara gasps to herself but tries not to let the full extent of her agony show. Kara never let herself do that in front of her serious enemies, and she certainly wasn’t about to start in front of Edge.

“Aww. Poor Danvers. What a pity we’ve monopolized all the healers.”

Morgan Edge calmly calls out as he emerges from the darkness.

Kara tries to put just a smidge of weight on it and- _NOPE_. Big mistake. Her body didn’t like that at all. Guess she had to stand up on one leg then. _She had to agree with him that the lack of healer’s thing was pretty unfortunate_.

Morgan watches her has she pitifully attempts to get up yet again. Clearly, his little trick with the tree root had worked swimmingly. Her body shakes as Kara attempts to bring back her bipedality. From the way she’s weighed on the one side, Edge can tell that isn’t going too well. _Oh, he had her completely where he wanted her._

“Give me the flag Kara, and we’ll politely throw you in jail. I’ll even get an Apollo kid to give you a once over, how about that?”

**_Choke_**. Is Kara’s immediate thought.

“You’re gonna have to come and get it from me Edge, you know that!” Kara responds, drawing her xiphos from its scabbard.

_Kara, Kara, Kara._ Oh, so stupidly brave.

“Oh, I don’t have to do anything.”

Edge gleefully responds. Crossing his hands, he excitedly springs off the balls of his feet. Nonchalant, he glances back over his shoulder.

“Oh Grace!”

Edge calls, and from the darkness, the daughter of Ares emerges. One hand mercilessly wrapped around the neck of a struggling Leslie and flashing a _wicked_ smile.

Kara’s heart immediately wrenches.

“She shouldn’t be here, she should be in jail! _”_ Kara challenges.

Not Grace Parker, but _Leslie_ , obviously. And the game jail, not the genuine article. Taking hostages into combat was _seriously_ low, and _completely_ not allowed. Kara sends a panicked look over to her new friend. Leslie’s giving Edge such a powerful death-glare Kara’s certain given the slip of the Ares’ councillor’s grip, that Edge might come away from this game bald and brow-less.

Kara wondered what their threat to Leslie was actually going to be. Surely, they wouldn’t actually hurt her? Leslie was just a child- The mere injustice of the thought makes her grip whiten around her blade. Then she hears the sound of crackling in the undergrowth behind them; next to emerge are five WW1 era undead: two RAF and the rest US soldiers. All armed to the teeth with rusted swords and bayonets. _Parker was only supposed to be allowed to summon three!_

“We thought that maybe… Leslie might want a little trip to the underworld? And Maybe Pierre over there could take her? How does that sound to you Kara?”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Kara challenges, feeling her temper start to rise.

Edge shrugs.

“We could have her there and back by the end of the match. Time passes differently in the underworld doesn’t it? Lena would know, though I suppose you wouldn’t… Shall _we_ see how long it is?”

In the dead of the night there’s a sudden _boom_ that comes as a shock the most of them, Edge embarrassingly included. It sounds like thunder funnily enough, and Edge looks up to notice there’s now a dense cloud of gray covering the moon: a sudden thunderstorm, how unpleasant. He looks back to Kara to see the girl hasn’t moved. In fact, she looks flat out ready to murder him, which makes him grin all the wider. _The younger Danvers_ , looking anything but peachy, what a truly rare sight! And considering their current climate, how the more thrilling! The lightning comes next, striking somewhere outside of Camp, and it whites all their visions just for a moment. Edge quickly tries to recover from his nervous jolt, that luckily no one seemed to have seen. It must be a trick of the light because Morgan swears he sees Kara’s eyes burning the same colour for some seconds after it hits. Grudgingly, he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his shorts. The pace at which the storm had hit? It was time to admit this weather wasn’t _natural_ per say.

Kara smiles to herself. Evidently, Zeus was watching them play, and didn’t like what Morgan was suggesting. It must be a super slow day at Olympus, for the god of them all to be paying the camper’s any attention, but it was good to know at least he had a modern outlook on child-abuse. She suddenly feels a lot stronger about her position, and her anger at Edge fades just a tad. They had a plan, and Kara just had to stick to it. That was all. She was the eldest of team H around, so, that meant that she got stuck with all the responsibility of not freaking out.

“Can we just uh, move over to that log there, do you mind? _Zeus_ my leg hurts.”

Kara seethes, invoking the god who’d just helped her out. It seemed like he was sympathetic to their cause for the moment, so she was also hoping he could send her some pain relief. No such luck. She slowly starts limping in the log’s direction.

Morgan shrugs. Like he cares what the girl decides to do. There was no possible way for her to get out of this. Not without divine intervention, which well it looked like the Lord of the Sky was willing to _give_ Kara there for the briefest of seconds. But he wouldn’t do anything worse, right? He wouldn’t dare get more heavily involved? None-the-less Edge should probably clarify his genuine position.

“I mean I wasn’t _actually_ going to send her to the underworld, it was just an _empty threat_.”

Kara hums rather amused and sends a small nod in his direction.

“Tell that to Zeus, and the girl you just terrified. It seems she’s under Olympus’s protection.”

The clouds are still looming darkly overhead, a warning presence. Interesting. Perhaps Miss Grant’s intuition had been correct. (If Kara was being honest with herself when _wasn’t_ Cat correct?) Leslie for one is quietly beaming from ear to ear, clearly now hyped up on her level of cosmic importance. _Devil child._ Kara thinks with the tiniest smidge of fondness and also a hint of fear. She was just glad the girl was on her side.

Kara shifts her ass onto the dead wood, using the protruding branch to pull herself upward and onto her feet again.

Morgan watches on a little stumped. She’s semi trapped herself. Kara had no room to move exactly, if she slipped, she fell and hurt herself, and Edge could easily take the flag. Tripping with that duff leg of hers seemed highly likely too. What was the game plan here? Was she stalling? But for what? Edge… had her surrounded. There was no possible WAY she was getting out of here. No possible way for her to do so without abandoning Leslie, which Kara would _never_ do. Ugh, her morals and all that!

“What are you planning to do from there exactly?” He asks before he can stop himself.

Kara frowns as if she’s in deep thought, then releases a heavy sigh.

“Have you ever seen the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie?”

She asks.

“That is- a really _weird_ thing to say.” Morgan scoffs.

“Is that a no?”

Kara answers for him, beginning to tight-rope trail down the dead tree’s trunk.

“NO, I- _yes_ , of course I’ve seen The Curse of the Black Pearl!”

Edge huffs, and Kara spots, out the corner of her eye, Edge’s fingers beginning to twitch in irritation.

**_What-about-it?_** He passive-aggressively shoulder shrugs at her. Dangerous move considering the opinions about him Zeus had just voiced.

“So… you’re familiar with Kiera Knightley in that role?”

Kara continues. _Oh my god, get to the point_. Edge rolls his eyes.

“What so you’re calling yourself Elizabeth?”

He humours her. Kara dreamily sighs.

“No, I just think she’s really neat in that role. I mean I am _clearly_ Captain Jack, and my girl Leslie over there is Orlando Bloom.”

She waves hello at their captive and the smaller girl gives a small blush back. Kara’s leaning casually against the tree branch now, head resting on her upstretched arm. She casually shoots the girl a finger-gun.

“Hang in there okay? We’ve got you, trust me.”

Her attention has moved to focus on Leslie and the pale girl nods dutifully back. Edge can still her the slight hint of nervousness in her voice underneath though, so despite all her _bravado_ she’s not all that confident. Edge is… thoroughly confused. He’s fairly certain he’s being tricked right now, but he can’t figure out how. _What was going on?_

“So, Morgan’s Norrington, or Barbosa?”

Grace interrupts. Morgan turns around to give her a look instantly. _What the fuck?_ As he turns back to Kara he watches her take the flag from her back and raises it high into the air. **_Hey, no!_** That couldn’t be good. He’s about to blurt out to the undead to stop her, but Grace seems distracted.

“Oh, he’s Norrington. …You’d probably be either Ragetti, or Pintel at this point.” Kara looks her up and down one final time. “ _Pintel_.”

She decides. Grace dumbly nods her head.

“Oh.”

**_O-KAY!_** Morgan Ulysses Edge would bite. He’d climb on board with this dumb-ass analogy!

“And what scene would we be re-enacting, oh great Captain Danvers?”

Edge hopes his voice is oozing as much sarcasm as he wants it too. Too his huge annoyance, his question only makes Kara beam with delight.

“That would be me following my Elizabeth.”

She answers him with a wink, and with that final phrase Kara spreads her arms out wide. Hand still enclosed around the flag she closes her eyes; …and falls backward off the log.

…And into the darkness of one of Lena Luthor’s portals. Briefly, for a few seconds maximum, Kara’s made aware of the solid Earth around her, and then the next thing she sees is a slightly different grey sky.

Then there’s the feeling of strong arms supporting her under her shoulders, and she looks up grinning, at the face of Lena Luthor.

Lena huffs in exertion.

“You did _not_ tell me, that you were going to trust fall through my portal.”

“And you didn’t tell me, that I’d portal into a river!”

Kara laughs back, and Lena raises her eyebrows in mild amusement. The two are knee deep in water, and _yikes_ it really was as cold as Kara remembered. Kara scrambles to stand up, and the portal shuts behind her moments later with a schlorping sound; they should get out of here. She promised Leslie only a couple more minutes. Behind them, toward Apollo’s side of the arena, some Hermes’ kids are clashing with Athena. Kara spots Alex maybe 20 meters away upstream. But there’s no way Alex can make it in time to stop them. They were home free.

They make it across the last three or so meters with a cheer from James’ squad. Which had begun to swarm back to the river at the sight of Kara’s flag. The game ends as soon as they make it. The sound of the satyr’s war-horn promptly echoes through the valley, to signal that one group has claimed victory in the night. And just like that weapons on both sides are lowered, and the teams enter a rhythm of condolences and congratulations; of teasings and beginner rivalries. The match will be all that’s talked about at breakfast.

Edge and Lord stumble in from the bushes, each with their various minions trudging behind.  Mon-El was exactly where Kara had predicted, stumbling down from their side of the cliff. A couple of his siblings seemed to be smoking. Clearly the children of Hephaestus had had fun with their _land-mines_.

_“THAT’S NOT FAIR!”_ Maxwell angrily storms toward them. Kara hadn’t noticed him, but he was fighting just behind and beyond Alex it would seem.

Edge is close behind, and immediately makes a beeline for Lena. Lena’s hand is already wrapped around the dagger handle strapped to her back. She’s ready to draw it any second. With a flicker of her eye Lena spots Leslie quietly hurrying back to their side of the camp. Gayle is ready to embrace her thank the god’s. She turns her attention back to Morgan.

“You _portaled_ , and I won’t stand for it!” Edge threatens, finger pointing accusingly at Lena’s chest. It wasn’t allowed. He wouldn’t allow it! _They cheated!_

Instinctively, Kara moves to stand between them, arm gently pushing Lena back.

“15-meter rule.”

Lena calls over her friend’s shoulder. She could take down Morgan Edge easily enough, but Kara was a built like a brick house herself, and it never hurt to have back-up.

“And how far did you portal me?” Kara takes up her cue.

“14.78 meters exactly.”

Lord scoffs.

“There’s no way you could know that.”

“Try me.” Lena challenges.

And Edge moves forward like that’s _exactly_ what he means to.

“I’m sure if Mister Lord is so wounded by his loss, then he will be more than happy to do so.”

The voice of the one and only Cat Grant enters into conversation; and the teens turn to face one of the most famous and revered demi-gods in current existence. As a blessing to all of them all this year, she was also acting as a guest councillor, and sword-mistress.

“- _peacefully_. Though… Lena never gets below a perfect 100 in her arithmetic tests, and some others I know do.”

Kara fights to hide her smile. That had to hurt even more coming from another child of Athena. Cat had also dropped by last year, around their time of try-outs and had hand-picked Kara to mentor. She’s the one who requested Kara got moved up a training level, and Kara was immensely grateful to her for the opportunity.

“ _Kiera_ , congratulations! Consider me impressed. Miss Luthor too, your defence of the hill and utilization of my other protégé is to be admired.” Cat purrs. Her tone significantly hardens when she addresses the boys. “Maxwell, I expected better from the head of my former cabin. And _you_ Edge, are in **_serious_** trouble for your treatment of Leslie.”

“How did you-” Edge stammers.

“I know _everything_. Always. You and Miss Parker are to report to my office _IMMEDIATELY_.”

There’s another boom of thunder in the sky as if to illustrate her point. Cat just sighs and glances upward.

“You’re telling me.”

The cheering and hugging of eachother post-match resumes as Edge and Parker get marched dutifully away by Cat. The rest of Ares are pretty quick to slink away in embarrassment. Kara embraces Alex with a level of ferocity and her older sister ruffles her hair with pride. Maggie Sawyer, working on the front line for Hermes’s herself comes forward to give her congrats, before her and Alex embrace themselves. The two girlfriends are quick to intertwine their hands and resume being on the same side. Kara imagines the feeling must come as a small relief.

Lena sends her a sly smile fangirling about how cute they are, and the proceeding camp-fire is filled with level of spiritual _warmth_ that Kara really loves.

\----

Toward summer, Lena and Kara both go questing for the first time. Kara’s been put on a minor quest under Alex’s guidance, which funnily enough Maggie’s also going on. Kara’s struck a bargain with J’onn that if she _truly_ had to third wheel the two for an entire month then the least he could do was allow her to bring Winn. Thank god he had laughed at her and said yes.

Lena’s been paired on a… _harder_ assignment, with someone called Sam Arias? Neither of the two know who she is, other than a daughter of Ares. Kara’s nervous about that since her own encounter with Grace. And Lena’s apprehensive about it because of her people skills, and the fact that everyone’s still a little wary of her for being, y’know, a _Hades’ kid_.  The stigma surrounding her father really sucked.

Kara reassures her that everything is going to be fine; it mostly will be. Lena in return tells Kara to write over the holidays.

“By text or by post-card?” Kara semi-jokes, and Lena smiles.

Seriously. The girl had so many homes and mansions, that Kara wasn’t sure she’d send them to the right address.

“Surprise me.” Lena waves as she gets into her taxi. …And that’s the last the two see of eachother for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DOUBLE POST! ...Because yeah :') Get ready for Sam next chapter!
> 
> Happy summer!
> 
> Britishgal   
> oxoxo


	5. Year Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's pretty gay.

#  Year Four

###  Chapter Five

Before year four even starts, the summer happens, and this year it’s different. With questing going on for them all, the upcoming demands the teens face are mostly new and vastly challenging. To begin with however, the season is slow, and Kara and Lena are left in relative peace to just _text_ most the time from their homes. Kara and Alex are back and the Danver’s residence and Lena… is alone at some Luthor mansion in rural Ireland. Apparently, there was some two-week training scheme at the Luthor Corporation coming up? They usually only accepted university undergraduates, and Kara’s not sure why Lena bothered applying at all, because _she owns the company_. But Lena mentions something about fairness, and the benefits of anonymous applications…  and of course, she calls Kara two days later to tell her she’s got the job. The ensuing phone call goes on for almost two hours. This almost constant interaction lasts about a month before Lena suddenly deactivates her Facebook and stops answering Kara’s texts. It’s around the same time she said her quest would start. Kara shouldn’t be too shocked, but it _does_ worry her somewhat in truth.

According to Alex, Sam’s profile has disappeared too, which makes the pit of her stomach churn. Her first instinct when she hears this is to run to J’onn and ask him where the hell Lena is, but Kara knows that in some mythological places, technology and the internet doesn’t work like it should; and this is probably the reason for the Lena’s radio silence. Not knowing that for sure though is what really puts her on edge. Also, how was Alex friends on Facebook with almost everyone at Half-Blood? Why did her sister have Sam on there? This was despite her claim of not knowing Sam Arias in person at all. Her nerdy sister, being _genuinely popular_ , was sometimes the cringiest thing in the entire world.

She tries to push any rogue thoughts of Lena from her mind when she’s questing, and actually, that’s surprisingly easy when Kara finds herself suddenly face to face with the minotaur. She nearly falls to the floor in exhaustion afterwards; the decapitated bull’s head lolling lifelessly at her feet. Kara makes some effort to fight the feelings but tossing her dented shield aside she promptly collapses onto her knees in the dust. The dirt will probably stain her brand-new jeans, but at this point who really cared? She makes herself more comfortable on the ground as she watches the demonic red glow slowly fade from the beast’s eyes; seeing the glassy pure black underneath makes her feel vaguely nauseous. But mission accomplished.

“Alex!”

“What?” Her sister responds innocently enough.

So _now_ her sister had decided to come closer! She was practically on top of her now almost. Kara notes Alex’s trusty bow is already neatly sheathed onto her back. Kara shakes her head in disappointment.

“Stop poking his body with my xiphos, that’s gross.”

Monster blood was so hard to get out.

\----

Another month on, and they end up back at camp. It’s the beginning of term, and Lena and Sam are lugging their bags across the oak-line of the hill, eager to get beyond the camp’s barricades and back to certain safety. Kara’s waiting for them on the other side with Winn, James and Alex. Winn spots them first and is quick to cheer and wave in hello, which makes Lena stupidly laugh. On their way down, Kara sees her and strides purposely toward them; bringing her straight into a hug. Lena’s quick to hug the blonde back.

“I missed you.”

Lena admits softly. It’s just loud enough so only Kara can hear it.  She quietly chuckles in her embrace, as if there’s a joke only the two of them share.

“We have _so_ much to catch up on.” Lena finishes. They really did. This summer had been _insane_.

Kara meanwhile, can feel Lena rolling her eyes over her shoulder at having to use the sad old cliché.

“I missed you too.”

Kara tenderly replies, hugging the girl even tighter before she has to let go. She’s so glad she’s safe. As Lena pulls away she takes the time to appraise the rest of their crew.

“It’s nice to see you too Alex, Winn-” She cocks a single eyebrow. “ _Jimmy_.”

“ _Luthor_.”

Still that awkward tension between those two, aha.

“Anyway. All of you… there’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is my questing partner, Sam Arias. We found when we were on the road together that we had a surprising lot in common.”

Lena beams as she introduces Sam, who actually Kara’s never met before, and Sam gives a weak hello to the group. She’s surprisingly reserved for a child of Ares and extends an awkward hand out to Kara. _Oh_. Kara beams. Being her, she takes Sam’s hand instantly and shakes it warmly; perhaps a bit too enthusiastically for the older girl’s liking. No, that’s alright, Sam’s grinning like an idiot back at her seconds later. She notices that Lena looks at her with that similar softness she usually only reserves for Kara, and that she’s… biting her lip. That’s new. What did that mean?

“Hi Sam, it’s lovely to meet you! This is my sister, Alex.” Kara says. Alex takes over the hand shaking with just as much over-friendliness.

“Well, adoptive sister. We share a non-biological dad- …it’s complicated. But I’m a child of Athena, and she’s-” Alex looks at her sort of hopelessly.

Kara chuckles.

“I’m still unclaimed. It’s okay though, one day I will be… I hope.”

She winks and ribs her sister in playfully in the side.

“Oh, and these are my best friends! James Olsen, son of Hermes, and Winn Schott, the saytr cleverer than most children of Athena.”

“Excluding me of course.” Alex comments.

Sam gives a sudden burst of laughter and snorts at that frankly terrible commentary. It’s a little awkward actually, and most of them ignore it. Anyway…

“Don’t forget that I’m more dextrous than all the children of Hephaestus.” Winn adds.

“True. If you want any armour forged, Winn’s your guy. Just… don’t ask him to play any music for you.”

“Rude.”

_Was it though?_

“I think we’ve met before Arias.” James says, also amicably shaking hands with the Latina teen.

“On the battlefield I think. I think I gave you that er- shoulder thing.”

Sam winces, tearing her attention away from Kara’s sister, and rubbing empathetically at her own. James raises his eyebrows in mock offense.

“You mean where you stabbed me through with a spear?” James smiles.

Sam awkwardly coughs and scratches the back of her head. It’s clear that she isn’t so sure how to apologise. _That would be the one, yeah._

“Sorry about that.” She sighs.

“Don’t be. My shield work is now ten times what it used to be.”

James claps her on the shoulder. Kara smiles seeing the two interact so intimately already. Looks like an adoption of the girl was already happening.

\----

Kara’s right. Sam quickly gets absorbed into their motley crew. Six weeks later and much to the joy of James he now has a partner whom he “actually stands a chance against” in combat. This is his _claim_ , though, he’s never actually won against her. Drawn with her a couple of times maybe, but anyway. Where they are now is in the yard of the empty arena, practicing their combat training. Lessons aren’t even officially on, but mock-fighting was a common camp past-time and was a great way to let-off steam.

“I am… all about that girl power, just so you know. But you guys are absolute d**** in a sword fight.”

James exhaustedly gasps mid-round, wiping his bloody nose with the back of his hand. Unsurprisingly, James and Sam were facing off, yet again, and both were ruthlessly going for it, leaving the other _tiny_ margins of room for error. Grabbing his Corinthian helm of the floor, that Sam had somehow amazingly knocked straight off his head, James shoves it back on. Winn’s quick to give it a shine and slaps it’s side in a display of his support. It was one of his new prototypes and it was holding up well all things considered. The imperial gold really added an extra layer of pizazz that Kara really rated. Winn had got it special import from his contacts over in Camp Jupiter. Maybe it needed a stronger strap on the bottom though?

“Ready to yield yet Olsen?”

Sam calls out from across the gravel. She looked a formidable sight, even when armed with only an elongated training spear. Arias was an unpredictable opponent, being a child of Ares, she seemed to thrive in all types of combat; a part of her spirit seemed to come aglow _only_ on the field. The closest ambiance Kara could compare it too, was when a child of Aphrodite got claimed in that weird beautifying ritual of theirs. Sam looked glorious every time she fought. Kara could tell she felt it too, there seemed to be a sort of rush of energy that she picked up on second hand. Sam frequently switched up her weapons, being naturally gifted in using them _all_. Alex liked to do the same, but her sister’s skill was borne from Athena’s quick learning ability. Kara noticed her sister and the girl, now having been acquainted, got on surprisingly well. …This time around as well, Sam wasn’t even using her electrified _makhaira_. If she were, James would be toast.

Beside her, she hears Lena softly laugh.

“Isn’t she amazing? That _power_.”

She finishes awed. So, Lena felt it too. Perhaps it was more obvious to sense than Kara realized.

The son of Hermes mumbles to himself as he steps forward again and into the frey. In response to his re-arming, Sam’s is to do the opposite. She quickly pulls her helmet off and tosses it to the side. Also letting her hair come tumbling down in the process.  She spots Lena and herself at the front of the stands, and sends them a cheeky wink and nod, accompanied by a zillion watt smile. The gesture is something obscenely smooth, and seems on par with what ex-wrestler Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, would hypothetically do. Y’know were he ever a _hoplite_. Kara’s mood instantly sours. She knows the gesture isn’t at all aimed at her.

Her focus shifts to Lena. Lena does that _lip thing_ and sends an enthusiastic wave back Sam's way. Kara knows she’s being broody and immature but that doesn’t stop her. This had been happening a lot with these two. This platonic flirtiness. Kara had never liked it, but lately it was becoming unbearable.

Kara braces herself as James charges toward her and her spear smacks into his shield.

“C’mon James!” She finds herself yelling in support. _Kick her ass!_ (That last part she only thinks.)

Lena sighs to herself. Not seeming to notice Kara's actions.

“I would kill to be that good in combat, look at her arms!”

“I always thought them fighting eachother wasn’t _fair_ exactly.”

Lena looks at her amused.

“What do you mean?”

“Well I mean, Sam’s clearly using her powers against him. Shouldn’t that not be allowed or something?”

Lena scoffs at her.

“Like James’ hasn’t used his against her before.”

“Yeah, but-”

“But if you have a problem with it, why don’t you just face Sam instead?”

It was a question Sam had asked her about in the past and one Lena said she’d put forward to Kara in the future. The brunette had never actually done it, but now seemed like the perfect time. A fight between Kara and Sam would certainly be much more even that James vs. Sam. It would be good for them both, she thought. The only person Kara had fought against the entire year was Mon-El, and that _had_ to be getting boring by now. Certainly, James was getting to be so for Sam, though she did she told Lena, like his persistence in wanting to beat her. Not that that was ever going to happen.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Kara immediately responds. Lena’s immediately bitter.

“Why not?”

She answers, barely hiding back her venom. And this was partially why she’d never asked Kara the question. She knew that the result of it would mean the two fought. She had never questioned her friend about why she was so off around Sam. Kara had _always_ been off around Sam, but Lena had hoped that one day Kara would open up, explain why this was and then they could swiftly move on. They could all make their amendments and be chums or whatever. Kara had never opened up though, so maybe now was the time to finally ask.

“Because she’s a cheater!”

Kara blurts. For Lena her response is like a surprise left jab to the face. She was super defensive of all her friends, and that meant no slander of them. Ever.

“What? Kara that’s ridiculous!”

“No, Sam turning James’ weapon into rubber last week was ridiculous, and I don’t do dishonourable fighting. I’m not going up against her.”

Kara turns away from the game to lean against the railings of the stand. The battle suddenly didn’t feel so interesting to watch anymore. Lena scoffs.

“I’ve seen you and Mon-El fight far dirtier. In comparison to you two, Sam is practically an angel.”

“Well Sam can’t anything wrong in your eyes, so maybe you just don’t see it.”

It’s a cheap shot, and a mean one at that, and coming from Kara of all people Lena feels somehow even more affronted than she would if it were anyone else. But just because Kara was the one saying it doesn’t mean she isn’t going to call the girl out.  Lena was more that capable of sticking up for herself and her friends.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lena challenges.

Kara can’t even bring herself to look Lena in the eyes. This was getting childish and was going to get completely out of hand. She uncrosses her arms in a subtle enough display of submission. The last thing she want’s is a fight with Lena.

“Nothing. I- I’m sorry. That was stupid. I need to get out of here.”

Kara needed to go… cool off somewhere. What the hell was wrong with her? She reaches forward onto the front bench and pulls her backpack onto her shoulder. Grunting at the weight of all the text books she had rammed inside. She really needed to start using her storage locker more, this was seriously inefficient.

Lena just watches her load her bag onto her shoulders, apparently Kara’s ready to just walk away from their discussion. For a moment she’s left too surprised to actually speak. She’s also low-key fuming at her best-friend. So, Kara was the one to start this passive aggressive behaviour, and dragged Lena into feeling the same way, only to U-turn and walk away oozing _self-pity_ of all things? Since when was this about _Kara_? Lena wasn’t having it. Kara’s just rounded the side of the spectator stand when Lena decides to jog after her.

Kara isn’t expecting the sudden yell from behind.

**_“Oh my god!”_ **

It’s Lena, she’d followed her. Kara shouldn’t be so surprised. Lena was one of the most determined people she’d ever met. Kara tries to cover her internal flinch as she responds. She wasn’t scared of Lena Kieran Luthor, not at all.

“What?”

She answers as innocently as she can. Meanwhile, Lena storms ever closer to her.

Lena’s stunned by her blasé. What? What?! …well _what_ exactly? There were so many things she could say in response to such a simple question. She had the same phrase rattling around her own brain in response to Kara’s sudden outburst. But one of them had to be the more articulate if they were going to make any progress, so Lena would begin. Starting with the question of _why didn’t Kara like Sam?_ Why had she been weird around Lena ever since they got back from questing? The two of them were doing fine before that, all the daily texts, the phone calls… then of course questing got in they way, but Kara understood that perfectly. Lena’d made clear to her much earlier in the year that was interrupted because of her location, which Kara had already assumed besides. She just didn’t understand what had gone wrong between them, but Lena felt Kara pulling away more and more the closer and closer she got to Sam. It was breaking her heart. An irrational yet rational explanation forms in her brain, and on impulse she fires back with it. Lena’s too wounded to stop herself.

She comes to a halt maybe a yard-stick’s length from Kara’s face.

“…you’re jealous!”

Kara scoffs, huffs, waves her hand around dismissively. She even needlessly re-adjusts her glasses, Lena notices. Basically, she does everything to convince Lena that she isn’t, which only makes the daughter of Hades’ think she’s genuinely found out the truth. She feels sick. Golden-girl Kara Danvers…

“What? That’s crazy Lena, I- no, I’m never jealous. That’s stupid!”

And obviously, she believed she could do no wrong either! What a demi-god complex. Lena shakes her head dissatisfied.

“You are. You’re jealous that I’ve made a new friend, a friend that wasn’t already one of yours.”

Kara physically steps back as pushes the bridge of her glasses up her nose. Lena knows she’s touched a nerve.

“I’m friends with Sam too!”

Kara fights back, trying not to take Lena’s words too personally. The young woman, had sometimes a hellishly strong bark, but usually there was no bite. This time it felt different though, it felt like she meant it. And her bark was aimed at Kara of all people this time. She feels her throat begin to tighten, and she clenches her fists at her sides in order to keep the tears at bay. But it’s hard. Lena’s wrong. She’s wrong, isn’t she? Then why does a small pit inside Kara’s stomach feel so guilty. Why was she already feeling so emotional?

“Except… you’re not.” Lena continues. “We’ve been back nearly two months, and you haven’t even tried to befriend her. It’s like you’re avoiding her or something.”

 _It’s definitely or something_. Kara thinks dryly.

“Look, I- I- am not jealous, and I am _so_ not avoiding her-”

“Kara you know I’m allowed to have a life outside of you right? I mean I allow you to do all these things without me, with other people, where sometimes I get left behind. So, I get it, and I know feeling left out can sting.”

It sounds a lot like she’s insulting her right now.

“ _Lena, I am not jealous of Sam_.” Kara hotly answers.

It probably gives away more information than she wants. Of course, the other girl sees right through her. Lena’s eyes are giving new definition to the term ‘greek-fire’ and Kara should probably stop pushing her buttons. She’d never actually fought the smaller girl before. They were always on the same side during games like King-of-the-Hill and Lena never entered any tourneys. Lena was by no means a power-house on the field, but she was fast, and with _Venomous_ she was especially deadly. She didn’t actively enjoy fighting so didn’t partake in it too often. It lead to her being frequently underestimated, but Kara knew better. Lena’s shoulder’s suddenly slump, and she turns away in disappointment. That spark in her eyes doesn’t fade though.

“Of course, you’re not.”

 Lena shakes her head as she walks away.

“Lena!”

Kara calls out to apologise. But the raven-haired girl doesn’t turn around, instead choosing to angrily flip Kara off with one hand. Okay, maybe she deserved that a little bit.

\----

Alex finds her back at Hermes’s.  Huddled on her trashy lower bunk and picking at the peeling panels of wood. The cabin is otherwise barren, and it’s unusual for it to be ever so private. Kara had lived in this cabin longer than most at this point and being friends with James had meant she had of course been offered a better living space, but Kara refused it. She gave her offered spot in a shared room to an unclaimed first year instead. Who since being claimed by Hypnos, had handed the bed over to an even smaller and younger camper, named Tess; carrying on Kara’s philosophy of kindness and looking out for those who needed it most. Alex was immensely proud of her sister.

“Really? You’re going to turn this dump into an _even bigger_ dump?” Alex muses.

“It didn’t feel right to be in Athena without you there.” Kara mopes sadly.

“Oh Kara, they love you there. You’d be welcome any time.”

Alex sits down beside her. Awkwardly bending under the lowly hung bunk. She swats Kara’s hand away from the wall, just as she picks away another white fleck. Her sister could have at least elected for the upper space though. They weren’t such tiny creatures anymore.

“ _Tsk_. Stop that. You don’t want Hermes to be mad at you.”

“He won’t get mad. …I think he understands. Travel can be messy.”

Kara answers truthfully, siting up to lean against her sister. Alex can see she’s on the verge of tears, so pulls her into a tight hug.

“Oh Kara, what’s up?”

She knew of course what was. Winn had messaged her as soon as he’d heard the two yelling.

“I… I don’t know. I got into a fight with Lena, about _Sam_ somehow? She think’s that I’m jealous of their relationship.” Kara scoffs between sniffs.

As her older sister, to Alex, seeing Kara like this is pretty adorable, and she should feel guilty about feeling like that but she doesn’t. This was classic middle-teen stuff. She’d been there only two years before herself. Being 16 was difficult.

“And are you?”

Kara is quiet.

“Kara?” Alex encourages.

“I- well, things are different than they used to be. Lena has new friends, her _own_ friends, which is great, really great but-”

“-But it means you don’t get to see her as much anymore.”

Alex finishes for her. Kara rapidly shakes her head up and down.

“Is that why you were with Mon-El earlier?”

“What?”

Kara blinks confused. What did breakfast have to do with their combat-training?

“At breakfast? You we’re hanging out with him the whole time and not with the rest of your friends.”

“They’re your friends too.”

She gives Kara a tight squeeze.

“True, but if I hung around with a bunch of 16-year olds and my kid sister the whole time. I would become the uncoolest councillor I know.”

Not that Kara would tell her, but she thought that was why Alex seemed so cool to the younger years. She didn’t give a single damn. Besides, now that she was Head-Councillor of Athena, wasn’t that sort of her job?

“And you wouldn’t get to hang out with _Maggie_.” Kara lightly teases.

Alex gives a tight smile as she thinks of her amazing girl-friend. Now that Maggie had left camp, and they were doing long distance… things had become harder. She gives a tight swallow. That conversation with Kara was for another time.

“Yeah, and I do enjoy that a lot.”

Kara makes a face.

“Gross.”

Alex hugs her sister even tighter. It was only a matter of time before the girl had a love interest of her own. Oh, they grew up so fast. Speaking of which…

“Okay, but you and Mon-El! I saw his arm around you in the breakfast queue Miss Danvers, _Scandalous!_ ”

What she isn’t expecting, is her observation to cause such obvious outrage to Kara.

“What, no! Me and Mon-El are just friends! Sparring partners when we sword fight. He’s the only one who can keep up with me.”

She answers super defensively, and a little proudly. The two were by far the best sword fighters in their group. Kara loved engaging with Mon-El, he was never afraid to experiment with technique, and admittedly at first that had been pretty annoying. But somehow, at some point this year, out of mutual respect for their humiliations of eachother at equal measure she supposed; they’d become good friends. He occasionally taught her new things that she wasn’t expecting, and that was exciting! Besides when you were fighting a monster, who really cared what moves you used?

“Well you might want to tell him that so he doesn’t try to _kiss_ you the next time.” Alex hums.

Gross. Mon-El was a great friend, but Kara could never see him like that. He was more like a brother to her. As far as guys went… well Kara did have a major crush on James when she had first met him. The year older than her thing she always thought was kinda hot. But that would never work out. Now she knew him, she viewed him like an innocent puppy that needed protecting. He _certainly_ did when they were playing king-of-the hill. The imagining of Sam shoving a spear into him makes her frown.

“Alex can we get back to the subject?” She asks.

“Right! Sorry. You mentioned Sam?”

“I… I _like_ Sam, I really do.”

Kara resumes in an exasperated tone, and Alex believes her. It was impossible for her sister to hate anyone truly, ever. Kara could even find the good in people like Donald Trump.

“But I… I don’t know Alex. Lena’s _wrong_. It’s not friendship jealousy, I would never be that petty, you know?”

Alex stays quiet and lets her sister monologue.

“It’s just… I get so _ruffled_ when she touches her or gazes at her or something. Sam always _lingers_ on her too long, even when they’re just looking at eachother. All that affection, it’s just too much.”

Alex tries to put two and two together. She assumes that by _she_ , Kara’s referring to Lena, because… who else could it be.

 _And I miss it being aimed at me._ Kara mentally finishes, nervously picking at her fingernails.

Alex purses her lips. She hasn’t seen anything out of the ordinary occurring between the girls. For all purposes and to her knowledge, they were just acting like what they were, which was best friends. _People were allowed more than one_ , but she thinks her sister already knows that. No, this upset is about something deeper, she knows it is. Because Kara’s thing she recognises, and this whole scenario sounds awfully similar to herself at Kara’s age. She’d been observing her sister’s behaviour around Lena recently, at the beginning of summer she couldn’t stop talking about her. Her and Maggie had had more than one gossip about the ordeal. A small smile creeps it’s way onto her face. Kara had always been a bit of a tomboy…

She tries to keep her happiness contained as she places a hand over her sister’s. Kara looks up at her slightly afraid, and her heart breaks for her sister a bit. Alex puts her personal feelings aside, and lets her infamous empathy wash over her.

“Kara…” Alex starts.

Kara’s lips begin to tremble. Alex sighs as she presses her forehead against her sister’s and squeezes the hand she’s still holding onto comfortably tight. Kara shuts her eyes in anticipation, almost as if she’s trying to ward away what she thinks Alex might say. Well tough, Alex was still going to say it. It was _nothing_ to be ashamed of.

“The way you reacted to Mon-El… to Sam.” She has to be careful how she says her next few words. She makes sure to keep her voice steady and neutral. “Do you think that maybe… you _like_ Lena?”

Kara’s eyes flash open. Her sapphire eyes meeting the smooth hazel of Alex’s own. Alex can see the blonde is blinking back tears, though a couple still manage to fall, so it’s not entirely successful. She wipes away a stray one with her thumb. It takes amazing amounts of courage to finally admit this important thing out loud, but Alex knows her sister is ready.

“ _Yeah_.” Kara answers, voice cracking half way through. It’s so quietly and unsurely said that Alex almost doesn’t hear it.

Then, like a whirlwind, Kara shoots into her arms, and Alex just clutches her tightly and strokes her head as Kara sobs. It’s just like her mom did with her when she came out. The memory adds a small dose of pain to her empathy.

“It’s okay.” Alex whispers softly. She's not sure who it's directed at. “It’s alright.”

\----

Alone in Hades’, Lena’s wringing out her hands and wearing a groove in the obsidian floor.

Jealous?

_Jealous?_

THAT was the best reasoning Lena could come up with? Oh god she was so stupid. And gay. Lena was a lesbian. **_Fuck!_** (Not about the lesbian thing, Lena had accepted that part of herself a year-and-a-half ago and was fine with it.) The problem was that she hadn’t told Kara yet. She hadn’t told Kara, but she’d told _Sam_ when they were out questing. Sam, whom she’d known for a _fraction_ of the time she had Kara. She should’ve told Kara first, but- Lena stops her pacing. But what?

But she was in love with her best friend. …Or certainly, she was crushing on her. Like SUPER hard and couldn’t seem to get it to StOP. Ohhhh gods, being queer was awful. No, she didn’t mean that. Yes, she did. Damnit Kara, why did she have to be so… SO- perfect? Groaning super hard, Lena collapses onto her bed, wishing the sheets would just suffocate her so she didn’t have to keep on dealing with this madness.

_“Wow.”_

The memory of Sam’s voice comes into her mind and her head shoots up from her sheets.

_She’s suddenly sitting across from Lena, legs crossed, and is waiting for their kettle to boil in the damp of the morning. The sun is just beginning to appear over the top of the Rockies._

_Lena sighs._

_“I know.”_

_And Lena’s sitting opposite her on a fold out stool._

_“And you figured all this out when exactly?” Sam asks._

_“After seeing her fight in a tournament against Mon-El last year.”_

_Sam sucks in a breath. Last year? Lena had kept a secret like this all to herself for that long!?! She doesn’t bring up her concerns though. Lena and her… Sam thinks one of the reasons the two get along so well is that they don’t press eachother too hard. They consciously kept some parts of themselves private, to make themselves feel less vulnerable. They’d both been through hell growing up, and so to both this course of action made so much sense. This unspoken understanding and their mutual respect of it, meant that they’d developed a deeper yet more relaxed level of trust very quickly. Damaged recognised damaged. To keep conversation semi-cheery Sam responds with something light instead._

_“…Dude has some beautiful biceps.”_

_She jokes. Lena’s face flushes._

_“Yeah, well, I was too busy looking at Kara’s.” Lena mumbles._

_“That’s-”_

_“Gay?”_

_“I was going to say, surprising. But… it’s not. It shouldn’t be.”_

_Sam frowns at the ground. They lived in such a heteronormative world. She picks at the grass in front of her, trying to come up with a desirable response to her friend’s confession. What would Sam have liked to have heard? She looks up again when she thinks she’s found one._

_“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me that.”_

_Lena nods. Guess she had to tell someone at somepoint._

_“Seriously. I’m proud of you Luthor. That was brave.”_

_Lena smiles. Sam grins back._

_“Now come here and give me a big old hug!”_

_Lena laughs as she shuffles awkwardly to get one._

Her head collapses back on the pillow and Lena huffs. She only started liking physical contact after the Danver’s sisters came into her life. Lena isn’t so sure why she’s only realizing this now. She gets back up so she’s resting on her knees. What was she doing cowering in here? Lena needed to be in Hermes! She needed to tell Kara, to fix this, before their rapidly dissolving friendship meant she never got the chance!  Lena practically leaps from her bed. She totally needed to redo her make-up, her mascara would be everywhere. Lena dashes into the toilet to re-apply it all in what she’s certain surpasses guiness-world record time by far. She side-eyes her actual shower with some content. The bathroom was looking much improved since first year’s incident.

When Lena flings opens up her front door, the exact person she wants to find is already standing right there on her doorstep. Her heart suddenly rockets through her chest before it plummets down through it. All her bravery deserts her and runs back to the safety of inside. Oh no. Now was not the time.

“Kara I-”

She croaks.

“I have to tell you something!”

The two speak at the exact same moment.

Lena needs a couple of minutes to actually find a foot to stand on, so this was fine.

“You go first.” She offers up. Kara nods, clearly feeling a bit braver than she was.

“Okay. Well first, … _I am so sorry_.” Kara blurts.

Because she is. The way she had acted was so stupid, and immature, and if she doesn’t get this all out in one go it might be another three months before she feels like she can attempt to again. So here it goes, she’s admitting all of it to Lena. Like right now.

“I’m sorry. I… do need to try harder with Sam, and I will. I promise. She seems like a super nice person and she’s clearly important to you and so I’ll work on it, because you’re really important to me.”

“ _Oh_.”

…Lena’s still trying to buck up here, cut her some slack. Kara’s kind admission does soften her up a little however.

“But secondly, Lena, I- It’s not- _jealousy_ , exactly.”

Kara says exasperated. Running a mildly stressed hand through her long locks. But it was. It was just a different kind to the one Lena had thought it was, but Lena didn’t need that clarified right now, and _let’s not dwell on Kara’s past pettiness._

“No. I know. Kara, I know, that that was just me being stupid! I’m so sorry-”

“No hey! You have nothing to apologize for. You were right, I’ve been acting _weird_ since we got back and I honestly didn’t know _why_ entirely until just now. Like twenty minutes ago. Alex helped me… figure something out.”

Kara exhales. She picks at her thumbs when she’s nervous, and she doesn’t break that habit now. Though, the moment she spots Lena staring she forces her hands back down to her sides.

Lena _thinks_ she knows what Kara is about to admit to her but she can’t quite believe it? She’s just hoping too hard. That’s all it is. _Wishful thinking on her end._

Kara releases a nervous laugh.

“I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner.”

 ** _I can’t believe I didn’t tell you sooner!_** is all Lena thinks in response.

Kara nervously swallows. This was going to be hard. What if Lena didn’t like her anymore once she admitted it? What if she thought Kara was a freak? What if Kara _was_ a freak? No. She wasn’t a freak, because her sister _definitely_ wasn’t a freak. So neither was Kara. Kara was just scared of herself changing. _I’m bi._ It was all she had to say. _I’m bisexual._

“I’m-” Kara starts, but instantly stops.

She tries the words again, but it’s like there’s a gag rammed down her throat, because her words keep getting stuck. Kara tries to quell her self-frustration. There’d been a lot of internal angst going on inside of her today. Maybe she needed to try another way of explaining herself. It was just like when she saw a puppy in the middle of the street back home, she just had to say what she would then-

_“I like you.”_

She involuntarily exclaims. Less cutesy than of course, she would direct at a dog.

Lena blinks. Once.

“What?” She whispers dazed. Kara can see the slight fear in her emerald-eyes already.

 _Please don’t make me repeat it_. Kara moans internally. This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake. _I like you._ The phrase seems to echo extremely loudly through her head.

“I… Lena, I- I’m bisexual, and I think I like you. And I also think…” Yeah this was really fucking difficult. She runs a shaky hand through her hair. There was no point stopping now, she was half-way through. “-that I have for a while so, Sam sort of- became this _threat_ to me almost.”

She whispers ashamed. It was a terrible _terrible_ reason to be so horrible to someone she barely knew. Even worse was, now that she was admitting all her feelings aloud, the projection and paranoia of them seemed ridiculous. There was nothing going on between them, and a part of Kara in truth had seen and known that all along. But Kara was _still_ jealous, and she hated herself for it.

“Wait, you like me?”

Lena stutters, at least she looked less afraid then she had moments ago. Her expression was a lot warmer. Lena looked almost… pleased even. There’s a hit of a smile tugging at her lips. Kara can’t figure out what angle she’s drawing, so she ignores the signs.

“ _Yeah_. It’s so dumb, you don’t have to say anything, I get it. It’s- I can cope with it. I’ll get over it as soon as I can.”

Her breath hitches when Lena’s hand comes up to delicately touch her face.

“Kara…” Lena says affectionately, face set in mild amusement. “Why would you assume I want you to get over it?”

Now it’s Kara’s turn to be surprised. Oh god she’s giving her that look Kara had imagined so many times before. And the lip bite! Kara might actually _die_ swooning. Lena actually looks downright _delighted_.

“I- um-” Kara answers back startled, still nervous as hell. _Wait, what was happening here?_

Centimetres from Kara’s face, Lena grins; from ear to ear so hard her that her eyes twinkle. What _was_ happening here? Lena thinks to herself. But she’s a lot less daunted by the question than Danvers. Lena could guess eight moves ahead in a game of chess for the god’s sake. She knew what was happening _:_ something incredible.

So, without hesitating for one more second, Lena Luthor pulls Kara Danvers in for a kiss. And Kara Danvers melts instantly and helplessly into their contact.   

****

**_Finally._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol all the rapid updates are because I wanna get this finished ASAP lmao. My time is about to just... never be free, ever again. RIP.  
> Lots of love to you all, I hope you're loving reading it as much as I have writing it. As usual feel free to kudos, bookmark and comment! 
> 
> Britishgal  
> oxoxo


	6. Year Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final bit. (Also pretty gay.)

#  Year 5

###  Chapter 6

The start to their fifth year is a rocky one. The summer hadn’t passed without a series of unfortunate events, and the period of grieving for them all had yet to be over. It wouldn’t be officially either, until their dead and Camp Jupiter’s were honored properly at the welcome-back bonfire tonight. It was not the happiest of beginnings to a new year, or how Kara would have liked to have spent her claiming ceremony, but here they were. At least in all this tragedy the mystery of Kara’s origins had been solved. Though, she understood a bit more now why some children felt such a fury at their godly parent. She was struggling not to feel any bitterness toward them right now herself.

She takes her pot-sticker pile with a neutral expression, and thanks her server Marge the Water-Nymph, in an as curt and polite manner as she can muster. Dragging her tray over the marble counter she side-eyes her goblet and watches as it fills with whatever she must be craving. Turns out what she’s craving is diet coke. Thoroughly unoriginal on her end. Kara spots her girlfriend sat alone in the corner and begins to make her way over. Grabbing an orange and loitering for just a moment over the salad bar, _because she probably should get some._ Wait, that reminds her! Kara moves to the offerings mound and dumps in a ceremonial potsticker. She wonders if her parent is a fan of Chinese. There’d be a sort of irony in that if they were surely?

Though there’s seemingly no trigger, her mind flickers back to the events of summer: _Kara runs a sweaty hand over her brow and tries not to faint in the burning LA heat._ A moment later and she’s back in the canteen. Well that was unnervingly vivid. Kara tries to shake it off.

“Hey!”

She greets Lena, clattering her tray down opposite the 18-year-old. It’s a bit too violent for her girlfriend not to pick up immediately on her mood.

“Hi.”  The raven-haired girl greets back. “Are you alright? Just then, it looked like you saw a ghost!”

Kara coughs.

“Summer, it was rough. Some of the things we saw…” Kara shakes her head. “They weren’t pleasant. I’m glad you weren’t with us.”

“I don’t know if I can say the same.”

Her girlfriend responds nervously.

“If people didn’t hate me before for just being a daughter of Hades’, then they sure do now.” She uneasily laughs.

Kara swallows down a pot-sticker.

“They’ll get over it by the end of this week. Besides, only one more year to go before you get to escape from this place!”

Lena… isn’t sure her brother committing treason by murdering a member of Camp Jupiter’s triumvirate; then leading a rebellion against Clark Kent and Lois Lane in an attempt at forming a dictatorship is something people are just going to ‘forget’. She wasn’t the only member of Half-Blood with Jupiter family, or Jupiter friends for that matter. And after camp besides, then where would Lena go? To finally lead her father’s company surely? The mortal corporate world… to her ‘laid-out destiny’… how droll compared to what she had witnessed. Clearly Lex was feeling something similar before he went completely mad. Perhaps facing this bland future had vexed him too much? His slander and hatred of Clark seemed too petty an issue to be his undoing. As a son of Jupiter, Clark was powerful yes, but… didn’t Lex see his own power was at least equal?

Half-Blood had gotten a call-to-arms in the second week of summer. Messages were sent to and fro to _everyone_ and in all manner of ways. Text, email, Iris message, vision, dream… those were all Kara could think of right now but she was certain there were more. Truly, _everyone_ was called up to fight: Kara, Alex, Maggie, James, Mon-El, Lena, even _Winn_ , but not all of them answered.

Lena didn’t. How could she? _Fight_ her own brother? Being told that she may have to kill him? So, Kara had understood immediately when she’d declined to go. If Alex had gone mad, Kara couldn’t kill her. Not without at least trying to get through to her, and even if she didn’t- …see that was the thing, Kara believed she would _always_ be able to get through to Alex; no matter what was going on inside her sister’s head. She’d die herself before she gave up hope about that. But the Luthor family worked differently to hers, and Kara had to respect that.

Lena said she’d messaged him, and indeed she had to see if there was any truth behind this ridiculous call for combat. Over the phone, Lex had sounded distant, _radicalized,_ when she’d spoken to him. _Clark had been his best friend for years!_ Lena had pointed out. _Where had this sudden paranoia come from?_ And that’s when he’d admitted to her that he had committed murder.

Lena had been too nervous to bring up the accusations at that point. She assumed up until his admission, that the _murder_ was just particularly vicious camp gossip made up to slander Lex. Because Lena had been subject to malicious rumour as well! Not that harsh mind, but Camp Jupiter was a far stricter place than Half-Blood. But her brother… he’d told her, over the phone, that he’d killed an innocent woman. And he’d admitted it to her with notable apathy. A _teenager_ just like themselves, slaughtered, and all in the name of power. Lex hadn’t phrased it quite like that, but it was in the jist of his reasoning! _She’d had to listen to his damnable reasoning!_ With each new justification he put forward, Lena had felt her heart sink a little more. Finally, when her heart felt like it had succeeded the depths of Tartarus, when Lena’s mind had fallen that heavily into despair, Lena had hung up on him. Lex hadn’t tried to call back.

He… was her brother. Her older brother, who had baked cakes with her, who had been the first to introduce her to the world of robotics, who had introduced her to her truest passion, _biology_. But Lena didn’t defend _murderers!_ The revelation about that had sent her reeling. The whole night she’d found out from Lex, she’d spend awake, switching between sobbing and sending messages Camp Jupiter, trying to verify if _any_ of what her insane brother had said was true. All her sources got back to her with yes. They also gave her all the gory details where Lex hadn’t. When Lena had finally assembled what she thought was the whole story… it wasn’t that she thought she couldn’t bring herself to kill Lex if need be… it was that maybe, after all, she _could_. And that realization, scared her more than anything. Lena would do whatever it took to defend the innocent larger population of Earth. She was willing to defend complete strangers, e _ven if it meant killing her family._ What did that say about who she was? She vowed to never tell Kara the truth. Kara could assume Lena’s reasons for not fighting. If Kara knew the _real_ her, then she’d leave her, and Lena would be alone again. She hated that that was her selfish reason for not telling her everything. ...Lena was a monster.

Kara had fought monsters before, but never humans. _Kids_ like herself. Perhaps that’s why the experience in LA was haunting her so viciously. This is what she’s thinking about as the two girls sit there and pick at their food in silence. She made a point not to kill any rebels, only to maim, and knock them out. This was a rule adopted by most the warriors, but over all, there had been 11 deaths, mostly at the hands of Lex’s men. _Only one Greek had died._ Kara’s throat tightens involuntarily. Leslie’s death was- Lex had- … he’d killed her when she had dived in front of Clark Kent. Leslie had saved his life.

_That’s when she’d found out who she really was._

\----

_She wrenches her sword from the shoulder of the unnamed camper and watches as he falls to the floor groaning. She’s about to bash him in the side of his helmet to make sure he really stays down this time, (the child of Iris was twice her weight and size and had refused to go down easily) but he promptly faints and spares her the trouble. Huh._

_In the head of the desert she flashes her head up, looking for anyone who may need her help. Then about 50 meters away she spots them. Two older boys in shredded purple shirts: one wielding a golden blade similar to her own xiphos, the other with a golden two-handed battle axe. She recognises the weapon from Lena’s description of it. It was the first and most impressive thing her brother had ever forged. That was Lex Luthor! Her gaze flickers panicked to the other boy: she notes, with some alarm, that he has no shield. Oh god._

_There was no way he could hold Lex off for long without one! She starts sprinting her way there almost immediately. Watching in absolute terror as the other boy stumbles and falls over a rock. Oh gods. Lex, taking the opportunity raises his axe high above his head…_

_Oh gods. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Kara was still at least thirty meters away!_

_“Clark!” She cries out as loudly as she can. Twenty meters away. Now that she’s so close she can see exactly who it is. The neatly clipped black hair, the sky-blue of his eyes- without Clark or Lex, this place would completely fall apart!_

_For a millisecond the son of Jupiter catches her eyes. He smiles at her forlornly, as if he’s already accepted his fate._

_“No!”_

_Lex’s axe comes down._

_Kara’s world grinds painfully to an emergency stop._

_It’s not Clark’s body underneath._

_But a girl’s._

_A girl with painfully familiar blonde hair, wearing an orange t-shirt over her bronze breast-plate. A pool of red is already forming under her crouched figure._

_…No._

_She looks barely fifteen years of age._

_No._

_LESLIE, NO!_

_A burst of red, then of white, temporarily blinds her vision. In her pure rage Kara barely registers the energy that rockets through her veins, then flows out to the tip of her xiphos. It lights up her blade brighter than the sun’s surface, and that somehow mimics the feelings in her chest. She doesn’t even hesitate._

_Kara ROARS._

_And out the tip of the celestial bronze, which Kara has aimed directly at Lex Luthor’s chest, she sends a billion volts of lightning. It hits him full on, and in the chest. Lex goes flying backwards, completely knocked off his feet. His battle-axe hits the ground with a loud clang. At the edge of her focus, Kara spots Clark stumble back at the action. He’s unaffected by her lightning-strike, but he would be. Above them, Kara’s noticed the sky has darkened. Much like it did that one capture-the-flag match she had against Morgan Edge. Well… maybe Zeus hadn’t been watching them then after all. He certainly would be now though, when two of his children were at war. Lowing her blade, she stalks towards his flinching form. Letting the excess electricity crackle through her and scorch the earth at her feet._

_Lex stumbles to sit up. Of course. He planned on killing Clark, of course his armour was resistant to electricity!_

“Kara?”

Lena’s voice calls her back to the present.

“Sorry, I was… thinking about Leslie.”

Lena looked just as in pain as Kara felt. The two of them, but especially Kara under Cat’s mentorship, had grown rather close to the girl over the past years.

“I see.”

Over the edge of the table Lena takes Kara’s hand and holds onto it tight. They’d get through this awfulness together. She opens her mouth to say something else when James slams his tray down next to theirs. He doesn’t say anything. Just glares at Lena hard enough to let her know how he’s really feeling.

Lena sighs. He’s mad at her. He hadn’t spoken to her the entire day they’d been back. She glances over to Hermes’s to see them all looking a tad lost without their Head-councillor. James always sat with his cabin. He considered it his duty as leader.

“Is this still about your friend over in Camp Jupiter?” Lena enquires.

Kara cringes a bit in truth at her slight tone of amusement. Apathy, even fake, which Kara knew it was, was totally was not a tool to employ around the big-hearted son of Hermes. Though he had to know by now that her girlfriend only used it as a defence mechanism.

“Clark’s not just anyone he’s my _best_ friend.” James starts heatedly.

Lena holds up a finger.

“And Lex, is my _half_ -brother.”

“ _Full_ brother. Same dad, different form, same mom.”

“Lillian is _not_ my mother.”

“Well she raised you, didn’t she? Two corrupt Hades' kids feeding off a delusional mom and each other’s ideals?” James shakes his head. “No. No way you’re different than they are.”

Lena hears Kara suck in a breath. This usually means she’s really to beat someone senseless for being rude to her.

“No Kara, it’s okay. Seriously, I’m- I’m fine.”

Lena steels herself, and even though they’re outside, Kara swears she actually feels the temperature around them drop a little. Kara realizes that right now, she actually feels a tad afraid for James. It was never a smart idea to piss off a child of the big three. She gets ready to intervene, though she’s not sure who to apprehend exactly, when Lena exhales and calms herself. Then, the air gets a little warmer again. Did no one else seriously notice that? Lena gives an empty smile.

“Tell me James, how’s Lucy?”

That was her response when she was _calm_? Talk about cutting. And Lena was better than this.

“Is that a threat?” James growls back.

“You tell me.”

“Okay, ENOUGH!” Kara snaps. “You two are being ridiculous, please stop. James come on, we’re on the same side!”

“She’s a _Luthor!_ ”

Oh my gods, like he’d ever had a problem with that before. The two had always been wary of eachother; but up until now at least they’d had the decency to be civil.

“James we are NOT our families. And did you see her go to fight on Lex’s side in that war?”

“I- no-”

“No! Because she stayed neutral, because she doesn’t believe in what her brother does, in what her family… has done. James she was _here_ most the summer, just ask J’onn!”

The son of Hermes’s releases his clenched fists and gives a sigh of defeat. It was all he could really do in the presence of a daughter of Hades’ and now it would seem, a daughter of Zeus.  …Talk about intimidating power couples. Besides he loved and respected Kara a lot, and that probably meant he should try at least to get over his prejudices. He knew only too well himself what discrimination felt like. Though the two forms himself and Lena faced were _vastly_ different.

“I- I’m sorry, Lena.”

Kara nods her head in satisfaction. Though she’d have to reprimand him more in private later about his choice of words. That commentary was pretty low of him, she’d never have expected it.

James rubs and awkward had over the back of his neck.

“It’s just, your brother… he nearly killed Clark, y’know?”

Lena moves her grip on Kara’s hands over to his, and Kara feels her heart swell with something.

“It’s okay. I’m… still trying to process everything too. From what I’ve heard about what my brother’s done...”

 _Lex… her gap toothed dorky big brother._ Who aged 9 _,_ one time got so excited he ran the entire length of their manor garden crying out Lena’s name, just to show her the butterfly he’d caught in his hands.

“I’m so sorry, James.” Lena responds, her voice cracking har at the end.

Kara can see she’s on the verge of tears, so hugs her girlfriend tight. _They would be okay by the end of this._ She places a lingering kiss on the side of Lena’s cheek as the tears start to fall. Lena crumples defeated into her side.

\----

Later on that evening, there’s a memorial campfire, a welcome campfire, and a campfire to celebrate the first child of Zeus to appear in 20 years, all wrapped into one. An important campfire, one symbolic of a load of things, and perhaps the most meaningful one Half-Blood has held in years. Those were not Kara’s words but J’onn’s.

Kara’s _finally_ been claimed, aged 17. Not going to lie, she was getting a little bit desperate at this point. But oh, the relief she felt when she saw that lightning bolt in the sky, post their victory at Camp Jupiter. Her father, the mighty King of Olympus… and she had absolutely no idea. Alex always joked about it being possible, but Kara had never believed her. Truthfully, when she was wishing to be claimed, for a father figure she had highly desired Apollo. If her mother were a goddess, well if her mother were a goddess… Kara would have liked Athena to be her, she thinks rather sheepishly. Being genuine sisters with Alex, well that would have been a dream come true. _Kara Danvers, Half-Blood avenger, Praetor of Camp Jupiter, daughter of Zeus!_ …Gods, what a title to hold. Kara has a half-brother now too! In Clark Kent of all people! James Olsen’s best friend; what a small world it was. Post their fight, and the apprehending of Lex, Clark had approached her and welcomed her almost immediately as family. (What a lovely guy!) He’d also offered to teach her how to fly if she could teach him how to ‘do that thing she did with the lightening?’ That made Kara smirk. She hoped they were both capable of doing what the other could do. Maybe they wouldn’t be? Lena and Lex’s abilities certainly weren’t identical. Kara was a little nervous. From all the tales and gossip she’d heard, Clark was somewhat of a living legend. Praetor of Camp Jupiter by the age of 17. At least for that title, the two achieved a similar timing! Though unlike Clarke, Kara held an honorary title in Camp Jupiter! So, she supposed… in a way she had one-upped him already!

In the shadows of the roaring bonfire, James is standing next to her, and grins at her proudly. Things within the friendship group had cooled down to acceptable levels earlier that day. The flame of their heat-of-the-moment squabble had completely diminished itself.

“I always knew that you were someone special Danvers.” James murmurs.

“And I always knew, that you were going to be a huge pain in my ass.” She shoots back.

So maybe the squabble wasn’t _completely_ forgotten. He laughs as he wraps her in a bear hug, actually lifting her off of the floor; his feet sinking slowly into the sand of the beach.

“I’m so proud of you.”

He cries out, and Kara knows her face is blushing bright red. Luckily, it’s dark so he probably can’t see it. If he could, he wouldn’t let it go for sure.

“Thanks, James.”

She mutters embarrassed, awkwardly waiting for the big-guy to release her. She loved James with all her heart, but she preferred to be able to breathe when she was hugging people. Or to be able to hug back, because, that was half the joy of hugging. He places her firmly back on the ground again moments later and continues talking at her. But in truth she begins to zone out a little, her head searching the crowd for signs for the rest of her friends. The meal in her honour that evening had been amazing, almost everyone ordering pot-stickers no matter who they were in thanks. It was so stupid, it made Kara laugh all supper long. She was sure it was all Winn’s idea.  Her best friend could be such a tease.

It isn’t hard to find them all. Winn’s playing some volley ball on the beach with some of his saytr friends and Marge the Water Nymph. She grins as she watches him spike a point and listens to the raucous cheer that results over their one-point victory. Her eyes shift to the left. Over on a nearby log, and beneath a familiar red blanket, she spots Alex, and- no way, was that _SAM_? Her eyes squint a bit more, and her jaw nearly drops to the floor in confirmation. _And they were_ _Kissing!!!!_ Like really, full on, mouth-in-mouth French stuff. Right in front of the entire camp. About damn _TIME_ Alex moved on from her break-up.

“Kara?”

James knows she zoned out of their conversation at least thirty seconds ago. He can tell when Kara’s distracted. She’s not even looking at him. Yep, the blonde was the least subtle person on the planet. His brow furrows, she’s seen something. He sees her eyes dart to the top of the hill and land on… turning, he spots a silhouette emerging from behind the big house. From this far back though, he can’t really tell who it belongs too. When it spots him however, it freezes, before it decides to lean casually against the wall. James frowns. He has a small idea of who it could be. When he turns to question Kara, he sees she’s softly smiling, which makes him smile too.

“I’ve gotta go.” She finishes, and barely looks his way. “Say hi to Lucy for me?” It’s not another second before she’s broken out into a jog back up to the Big House.

On the veranda of the Big House, Kara comes to a halt. The jog barely affected her breathing rate, _nice!_ Training all the time to fight the mythological definitely had its plusses. Her blue eyes glitter with happiness when she confirms the silhouette is in fact who she’s been looking for this entire evening; she _knew_ it was her. In the shadows Kara can spot that her smile is just as big as her own. It puts her mostly at ease.

“Hi.” She says awkwardly, unable to stop herself from beaming despite how she’s feeling. Nervous, mostly nervous. Lena always made her feel nervous. “I didn’t catch you down at the fire, or the feast, or even lunch actually. I sort of lost you post the whole-” She mimics slashing her sword, because _fight_.

“Maybe because I wasn’t around.”

Lena answers smoothly as she emerges from the shadows. Kara knows she’s teasing her, and she _desperately_ wants to respond with something witty; But the sight of Lena’s beautiful emerald eyes and of that wicked smile she always wore, as usual leaves Kara feeling breathless. There’s no other adequate word for it. She swallows down her… thirst. Gods, a year later and she was still desperately in love with this girl. Kara still couldn’t quite believe she’d agreed to date her.

Lena steps closer and aggressively wraps one hand in the chest of Kara’s cotton t-shirt, making it ride up at the lower hem. There’s a pleasantly abbed torso underneath, that Lena knows all about. And don’t get her wrong, she’s seriously grateful that exists, but that’s not what she’s here for right now. Kara’s breath hitches as the raven-haired woman pulls her closer, so that they’re only inches apart. Her heart is _hammering_ in her chest.

“A daughter of Zeus, huh?” Lena purrs.

Today was actually the first time they’d seen eachother _physically_ post LA and Jupiter.

“ _Yep_.” Kara just about manages to squeak back.

Her knees might buckle she’s so turned on right now.

Then, _slowly_ , Lena releases the fabric of her top and turns away; and almost immediately Kara misses all of her; her scent, the feel of her touch, the depth in those lush eyes. Lena calmly walks over to the veranda railings and places her arms on either side. It’s so simple. And yet it’s so stupidly sexy. Like something from Titanic, Kara immediately thinks. Was Lena trying to kill her tonight?

“I guess then, that you and I are fated to be enemies. We should probably end this _thing_ between us.”

Lena breezily comments. Looking not at Kara, but out onto the Lake, where the party was still raging on, fire full and bright. She tries to pass it off as a joke; as something light and nonchalant, but the raven-haired girl forgets just how well Kara knows her. She can tell that comment was made on the basis of at least some partial truth. Some genuine fear. So, she approaches the back of her girlfriend carefully, pushing her front into the back of Lena’s body. Letting her arms lightly drift down and under Lena’s, gently lifting them off the balcony; until the daughter of Hade’s turns to look at her. Sure enough, there’s vulnerability written all over her eyes.

Neither of them says anything.

Kara brings Lena’s right hand up to her face, grasping it tightly between both her own. Then, softly, she presses her lips to it. Looking Lena dead in the eye, she trace’s soft circles on the older girl’s palm.

“This doesn’t change _anything_.” She whispers. “I promise you.”

She can see the relief on Lena’s face already, and she shouldn’t but she laughs. Kara wraps her arms around her girlfriend’s neck.

“We’ve been dating for almost a _year_ now dummie.” She playfully nuzzles Lena’s nose. “If we were going to hate eachother… I feel like we’d know about that by now. Besides, like you’re getting rid of me that easily when I  now have a cabin to myself.”

Lena scoffs and hits her lightly on the chest at her implied suggestion, then slides both arms around Kara’s waist in return.

“ _Kara Danvers_. You really do know how to woo a girl.”

“Well if my recently acquired estate doesn’t impress the daughter of the god of riches…”

“Um- I have my own million-dollar fortune _and_ cabin already, thank you very much!”

Kara makes a face.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m definitely the pauper of this relationship, aren’t I?”

“And don’t you forget it!” Lena scolds her.

They move to kiss eachother, when the sound of stumbling feet forces them out of eachother’ s arms.

“Whoops! Sorry.” A female voice giggles in the dark. They sound drunk, where had they found _alcohol_ tonight? Even Kara hadn’t had any, and this was _her_ party. …in a way.

“Sam?” Lena asks incredulous.

“Lena, I did it, I told her how I felt! _WOOOOO!”_

Kara muffles her laughter at the way the girl’s acting, she can’t help it. Seeing Sam like this is indescribably incredible. Also, Kara can’t really see it, but she can feel the girl’s proud beam from where she’s standing. She may have hated her a little last year, but this is really adorable. She gestures for Sam to come properly into the light and rolls her eyes, because she also knows who else is out there.

 _“Hi Alex.”_ Kara dead-pans. Another shadow emerges from the night and is made barely visible.

“Uh- _hi_ Kara, I uh-”

“Was making out like a fiend on the beach earlier with your long-term crush?”

Kara says with folded arms.

“She’s so good at it.” Sam mumbles, as she huddles into Alex’s side. Kara notices the younger girl is also wearing her sister’s biker jacket, and knowingly raises her eyebrows.

“Aw, well you’re not to bad at it either.” Alex playfully squishes the shoulders of her date. “I should… probably get her back to her cabin.”

She really didn’t fancy getting beaten up by all the children of Ares for being so irresponsible with their sister.

“Make sure she gets a glass of water.” Lena contributes.

“Yeah and maybe some paracetamol too!” Kara adds.

Alex nods as they shuffle off back into the dark. Sam releases another drunken _WOO!_ And this time Kara does release an audible snicker. She’s caught off guard when Lena takes her arm and spins her round.

“Now then. Where were we?” Lena hums.

And delicately, Kara raises a hand to stroke Lena’s cheek with her fingers. Lena can’t help but lean into the warmth of her. Not to make a bad pun but Kara’s touch made her feel _electric_.

“I think we were at the best part.”

Kara whispers back, before she kisses Lena Luthor under the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... that's it! That's the end. Thank you to all of you who've been reading, especially those in the comments who've told me how much this had brightened small parts of their day, I'm so happy I've managed to do that! I hope this is a satisfying conclusion. Some AgentReign will probably make it into it's own one-shot, probably linked to this at some point! It got bloody I know, but it had too at some point, I just didn't want my babies facing death even younger, so I did a JKR and just escalated the shit out of things in the final year!
> 
> Happy summer, keep reading and writing!
> 
> Britishgal  
> oxoxo

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, hope you liked chapter 1! There will be six all together, each progressing a year to show Kara and Alex's development at Camp-half blood along the way. Things will happen, the most important to Kara being Lena Luthor, and Alex's... well you'll find out! This is my first SuperCorp fic, so any feedback on it would be great! I love reading your comments, but likewise a kudos or bookmark is equally appreciated. I hope you liked chapter one, and that your summer is awesome as fook! I'll be writing this haphazardly between my other larger, bechloe fic and I hope that's okay!
> 
> See ya soon,
> 
> Britishgal


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